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GREECE &s 

THE i^GEAN 
^ ISLANDS -^ 




PHILIP S.MARDEN 



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GREECE 

AND 

THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 



GREECE 

AND THE 

^GEAN ISLANDS 

BY 

PHILIP SANFORD MARDEN 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

MDCCCCVII 



1 



flWhARY of CONCREJSS 
Two Coules Racetved 
NOV f \90f 
, -^Cnnyrtehf Entn- 



JLAs//f / XXc:, No. 



COPY u. 



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COPYRIGHT 1907 BY PHILIP S. MARDEN 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published November iqoj 



PROLEGOMENA 

WHAT follows makes no pretense whatever of 
being a scientific work on Greece, from an 
archaeological or other standpoint. That it is written 
at all is the resultant of several forces, chief among 
which are the consciousness that no book hitherto 
published, so far as I am aware, has covered quite the 
same ground, and the feeling, based on the experi- 
ence of myself and others, that some such book ought 
to be available. 

By way of explanation and apology, I am forced to 
admit, even to myself, that what I have written, espe- 
cially in the opening chapters, is liable to the occa- 
sional charge that it has a guide-bookish sound, de- 
spite an honest and persistent effort to avoid the same. 
In the sincere desire to show how easy it really is to 
visit Hellas, and in the ardent hope of making a few 
of the rough places smooth for first visitors, I have 
doubtless been needlessly prolix and explicit at the 
outset, notably in dealing with a number of sordid de- 
tails and directions. Moreover, to deal in so small a 
compass with so vast a subject as that of ancient and 
modern Athens is a task fraught with many difficul- 
ties. One certainly cannot in such a book as this ignore 



vi PROLEGOMENA 

Athens utterly, despite the fact that so much has been 
published hitherto about the city and its monuments 
that no further description is at all necessary. My ob- 
ject is not to make Athens more familiar, but rather 
to describe other and more remote sites in Greece for 
the information, and I hope also for the pleasure, of 
past and future travelers. Athens, however, I could not 
ignore ; and while such brief treatment as is possible 
here is necessarily superficial, it may help to awaken 
an additional interest in that city where none existed 
before. 

Aside from the preliminary chapters and those deal- 
ing with Athens itself, I hope to have been more suc- 
cessful. I have, at any rate, been free in those other 
places from the depressing feeling that I was engaged 
on a work of supererogation, since this part of the 
subject is by no means hackneyed even through treat- 
ment by technical writers. Since the publication of 
most of the better known books on Greek travel, a 
great deal has been accomplished in the way of ex- 
cavation, and much that is interesting has been laid 
bare, which has not been adequately described, even 
in the technical works. In dealing with these addi- 
tions and in describing journeys to less familiar in- 
land sites, as well as cruises to sundry of the classic 
islands of the ^gean, I hope this book will find its 
real excuse for being. 



PROLEGOMENA vii 

In adopting a system for spelling the names of Greek 
cities, towns, and islands, I have been in something of 
a quandary, owing to the possibilities presented by the 
various customs of authors in this field, each one of 
which has something to recommend it and something, 
also, of disadvantage. If one spells Greek names in the 
more common Anglicized fashion, especially in writ- 
ing for the average traveler, one certainly avoids the 
appearance of affectation, and also avoids misleading 
the reader by an unfamiliar form of an otherwise famil- 
iar word. Hence, after much debate and rather against 
my own personal preferences and usage in several 
instances, I have adhered in the main to the forms of 
name most familiar to American eyes and ears. In 
cases of obscure or little known sites, where it is occa- 
sionally more important to know the names as locally 
pronounced, I have followed the Greek forms. This, 
while doubtless not entirely logical, has seemed the 
best way out of a rather perplexing situation, bound 
to be unsatisfactory whichever way one attempts to 
solve the problem. 

In mercy to non-Hellenic readers, I have likewise 
sought to exclude with a firm hand quotations from 
the Greek language, and as far as reasonably possible 
to avoid the use of Greek words or expressions when 
English would answer every purpose. 

If, in such places as have seemed to demand it, I 



viii PROLEGOMENA 

have touched upon archaeological matters, I hope not 
to have led any reader far from the truth, although one 
admittedly an amateur in such matters runs grave risk 
in committing himself to paper where even the doctors 
themselves so often disagree. I hope especially to have 
escaped advancing mere personal opinions on moot 
points, since dilettanti in such a case have little busi- 
ness to own any opinions, and none at all to exploit 
them to the untutored as if they had importance or 
weight. Rather I have only the desire to arouse 
others to a consciousness that it is as easy now to 
view and enjoy the visible remnants of the glory that 
was Greece, as it is to view those of the grandeur that 
was Rome. 

In the writing of these chapters an effort has been 
made to set forth in non-technical terms only what 
the writer himself has seen and observed among 
these haunts of remote antiquity, with the idea of 
confining the scope of this book to the needs of those 
who, like himself, possess a veneration for the old 
things, an amateur's love for the classics, and a desire 
to see and know that world which was born, lived, 
and died before our own was even dreamed of as 
existing. If by what is written herein others are led 
to go and see for themselves, or are in any wise 
assisted in making their acquaintance with Greece, 
or, better still, are enabled the more readily to recall 



PROLEGOMENA ix 

days spent in that most fascinating of all the bygone 
nations, then this book, however unworthily dealing 
with a great subject, will not have been written in 
vain. 

Philip Sanford Marden. 

Lowell, Mass., August, 1907. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



I. TRAVELING IN GREECE . . . r 

II. CRETE i8 

III. THE ENTRANCE TO GREECE . . 37 
IV. ATHENS ; THE MODERN CITY . . 50 
V. ANCIENT ATHENS : THE ACROPOLIS . 76 
VL ANCIENT ATHENS : THE OTHER MONU- 
MENTS 96 

VIL EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA . . . 123 

VIII. DELPHI 146 

IX. MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS . 169 
X. NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS . . .193 

XL IN ARCADIA . . . . . 211 
XII. ANDHRITS.^NA AND THE BASS^ 

TEMPLE ..... 229 

XIII. OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA . , 247 

XIV. THE ISLES OF GREECE: DELOS . 272 
XV. SAMOS AND THE TEMPLE AT BRAN- 
CHID^. ..... 2S6 

XVI. COS AND CNIDOS . . . . .304 

XVII. RHODES . . . . ... 318 

XVIIL THERA 334 

XIX. Nios ; PAROS ; a midnight mass . 351 

XX. CORFU 368 

INDEX 381 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

ACROPOLIS, SHOWING PROPYL^EA Frontispiece 

MAP ........ I 

LANDING-PLACE AT CANEA . . . . 20. 

THRONE OF MINOS AT CNOSSOS . . .34-^ 

STORE-ROOMS IN MINOAN PALACE, CNOSSOS 36 

OLD CHURCH IN TURKISH QUARTER, ATHENS . 60 
TEMPLE OF NIKE APTEROS .... 80 

THE PARTHENON, WEST PEDIMENT ... 86 
TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS . . . 104 

THE AREOPAGUS 108 

THE THESEUM 112 

TOMB AMPHORA, CERAMICUS . . . .116 

TOMB RELIEF, CERAMICUS . . . . 118 

BRONZE EPHEBUS, NATIONAL MUSEUM, ATHENS 120 
THE TEMPLE AT SUNIUM .... 134 

THE APPROACH TO ^GINA . . . .138 

THE TEMPLE AT ^GINA . . . . 138 

PEASANT DANCERS AT MENIDI . . .142 

THE PLAIN BELOW DELPHI . . . 1 50 

THE VALE OF DELPHI 156-^ 

CHARIOTEER, DELPHI . . . . 166 -- 

AGORA, MYCEN^ 180 

WOMAN SPINNING ON ROAD TO EPIDAURUS . 198 



XIV 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



EPIDAURIAN SHEPHERDS 

THEATRE AT EPIDAURUS 

AN OUTPOST OF ARCADY 

THE GORGE OF THE ALPHEIOS . 

ANDHRITS^NA .... 

AN ARBOREAL CAMPANILE. ANDHRITS^NA 

THRESHING FLOOR AT BASS^ 

TEMPLE AT BASS^, FROM ABOVE 

TEMPLE AT BASS^, FROM BELOW . 

HER^UM. OLYMPIA 

ENTRANCE TO THE STADIUM. OLYMPIA 

DELOS, SHOWING GROTTO . 

GROTTO OF APOLLO, DELOS . 

COLUMN BASES. SAMOS 

CARVED COLUMN-BASE. BRANCHID^ 

TREE OF HIPPOCRATES. COS 

CNIDOS, SHOWING THE TWO HARBORS 

SCULPTURED TRIREME IN ROCK AT 

(From a Sketch by the Author) 
ARCHED PORTAL OF ACROPOLIS. LINDOS 

SANTORIN 

LANDING-PLACE AT THERA . 

THERA 

A THERAN STREET 

OLD COLUMNS IN CHURCH, PAROS . 

" SHIP OF ULYSSES." CORFU 



202 


206 


. . 224 


226 


230 


VA . 234 


. 240 


244 


. 244 


258 


262 


282 


. 282 


296 


. 296 


306 


. 314 


LINDOS. 


. 327 


5 . 328 


. 336 


338 


. 342 


346 


362 


374 



GREECE 

AND 

THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 



CHAPTER I. TRAVELING IN 
GREECE 




THE days in which a visit to Greece might 
be set down as something quite unusual and 
apart from the beaten track of European travel have 
passed away, and happily so. The announcement of 
one's intention to visit Athens and its environs no 
longer affords occasion for astonishment, as it did 
when Greece was held to be almost the exclusive 
stamping-ground of the more strenuous archaeo- 
logists. To be sure, those who have never experi- 
enced the delights of Hellenic travel are still given 
to wonderment at one's expressed desire to revisit 
the classic land ; but even this must pass away in its 
turn, since few voyage thither without awakening 
that desire. 

It is no longer an undertaking fraught with any 
difficulty — much less with any danger — to visit the 
main points of interest in the Hellenic kingdom ; 
and, what is more to the purpose in the estimation 



2 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of many, it is no longer an enterprise beset with dis- 
comfort, to any greater degree than is involved in 
a journey through Italy. The result of the growing 
consciousness of this fact has been a steadily increas- 
ing volume of travel to this richest of classic lands — 
richest not alone in its intangible memories, but rich- 
est also in its visible monuments of a remote past, 
presenting undying evidence of the genius of the 
Greeks for expressing the beautiful in terms of marble 
and stone. One may, of course, learn to appreciate 
the beautiful in Greek thought without leaving home, 
embodied as it is in the imposing literary remains to 
be met with in traversing the ordinary college course. 
But in order fully to know the beauty of the sculp- 
tures and architecture, such as culminated in the age 
of Pericles, one must visit Greece and see with' his 
own eyes what the hand of Time has spared, often 
indeed in fragmentary form, but still occasionally 
touched with even a new loveliness through the mel- 
lowing processes of the ages. 

To any thinking, reading man or woman of the 
present day, the memories, legends, and history of 
ancient Greece must present sufficient attraction. Few 
of us stop to realize how much of our modern thought 
and feeling was first given adequate expression by 
the inhabitants of ancient Athens, or how much of 
our own daily speech is directly traceable to their 



TRAVELING IN GREECE 3 

tongue. Modern politics may still learn much tact 
of Pericles, and oratorical excellence of ^schines, 
as modern philosophy has developed from Socrates, 
Plato, and Aristotle. Is it not even true that a large 
part of modern religious thought, the hope of glory 
at least, if not the means of grace, finds its strongest 
foreshadowing in the groping of the more enlightened 
Athenians for a hope of immortality and life beyond 
the grave ? The transition of the crowning architec- 
tural glory of the Acropolis at Athens from a temple 
of the virgin (parthenos) Athena to a church of the 
Virgin Mary was, after all, not so violent, when it is 
remembered that the later paganism had softened 
from its old system of corrupt personal deities to an 
abstract embodiment of their chief attributes or qual- 
ities, such as wisdom, healing, love, and war. Down 
to this day the traces of the pagan, or let us say the 
classic period, are easy to discern, mingled with the 
modern Greek Christianity, often unconsciously, and 
of course entirely devoid of any content of pagan- 
ism, but still unmistakably there. To this day festivals 
once sacred to Asklepios still survive, in effect, though 
observed on Christian holy days and under Christian 
nomenclature, with no thought of reverence for the 
Epidaurian god, but nevertheless preserving intact 
the ancient central idea, which impelled the wor- 
shiper to sleep in the sanctuary awaiting the healing 



4 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

visit of a vision. In every church in Greece to-day 
one may see scores of little metal arms, legs, eyes, and 
other bodily organs hung up as votive offerings on 
the iconastasis, or altar screen, just as small anatom- 
ical models were once laid by grateful patients on the 
shrine of Asklepios at Cos. It is most striking and 
impressive, this interweaving of relics of the old-time 
paganism with the modern Greek religion, showing 
as it does a well-marked line of descent from the 
ancient beliefs without violent disruption or transi- 
tion. It has become a well-recognized fact that certain 
modern churches often directly replace the ancient 
temples of the spot in a sort of orderly system, even 
if it be hard occasionally to explain. The successors 
of the fanes of Athena are ordinarily churches of the 
Virgin Mary, as was the case when the Parthenon 
was used for Christian worship. In other sites the 
worship of Poseidon gave way to churches sacred to 
St. Nicholas. The old temples of Ares occasionally 
flowered again, and not inappropriately, as churches 
of the martial St. George. Dionysus lives once more 
in churches named "St. Dionysius," though no longer 
possessing any suspicion of a Bacchic flavor. Most 
striking of all is the almost appalling number of hills 
and mountains in Greece named " St. Elias," and 
often bearing monasteries or churches of that designa- 
tion. There is hardly a site in all Greece from which 



TRAVELING IN GREECE 5 

it is not possible to see at least one " St. Elias," and I 
have been told that this is nothing more nor less than 
the perpetuation of the ancient shrines of Helios (the 
sun) under a Christian name, which, in the modern 
Greek pronunciation, is of a sound almost exactly 
similar to the ancient one. The substitution, there- 
fore, when Christianity came to its own, was not 
an unnatural, nor indeed an entirely inappropriate, 
one. 

It all conspires to show that, while the modern 
Greek is sincerely and devoutly a Christian, his tran- 
sition into his new faith from the religion of his remot- 
est ancestors has been accompanied by a very consid- 
erable retention of old usages and old nomenclature, 
and by the persistence of ineradicable traces of the 
idealistic residuum that remained after the more gross 
portions of the ancient mythology had refined away 
and had left to the worshiper abstract godlike attri- 
butes, rather than the gods and goddesses his fore- 
fathers had created in man's unworthy image. So, 
while nobody can call in question the Christianity of 
the modern Greek, his churches nevertheless often do 
mingle a quaint perfume of the ancient and classic 
days with the modern incense and odor of sanctity. 
To my own mind, this obvious direct descent of many 
a churchly custom or churchly name from the days of 
the mythical Olympian theocracy is one of the most 



6 GREECE AND THE .EGEAN ISLANDS 

impressively interesting things about modern Hellas 
and her people. 

In a far less striking, but no less real way, we our- 
selves are of course the direct inheritors of the classic 
Greeks, legatees of their store of thought, literature, 
and culture, and followers on the path the Greeks 
first pioneered. They and not we have been the cre- 
ators in civilization, with all its varied fields of activ- 
ity from politics to art. Of our own mental race the 
Greeks were the progenitors, and it is enough to re- 
cognize this fact of intellectual descent and kinship 
in order to view the Athenian Acropolis and the Hill 
of Mars with much the same thrill that one to-day 
feels, let us say, in coming from Kansas or California 
to look upon Plymouth Rock, the old state house at 
Philadelphia, or the fields of Lexington and Concord. 

All this by way of introduction to the thought that 
to visit Hellas is by no means a step aside, but rather 
one further step back along the highway traversed 
from east to west by the slow course of empire, and 
therefore a step natural and proper to be taken by 
every one who is interested in the history of civilized 
man, the better to understand the present by viewing 
it in the light of the past. The " philhellene," as the 
Greeks call their friend of to-day, needs no apologist, 
and it is notable that the number of such philhellenes 
is growing annually. 



TRAVELING IN GREECE 7 

Time was, of course, when the visit to Greece meant 
so much labor, hardship, and expense that it was 
made by few. To-day it is no longer so. One may now 
visit the more interesting sites of the Greek penin- 
sula and even certain of the islands with perfect ease, 
at no greater cost in money or effort than is entailed 
by any other Mediterranean journey, and with the 
added satisfaction that one sees not only inspiring 
scenery, but hills and vales peopled with a thousand 
ghostly memories running far back of the dawn of 
history and losing themselves in pagan legend, in 
the misty past when the fabled gods of high Olympus 
strove, intrigued, loved, and ruled. 

The natural result of a growing appreciation of the 
attractions of Greece is an increase in travel thither, 
which in its turn has begotten increasing excellence 
of accommodation at those points where visitors most 
do congregate. Railroads have been extended, hotels 
have multiplied and improved, steamers are more 
frequent and more comfortable. One need no longer 
be deterred by any fear of hardship involved in such 
a journey. Athens to-day offers hostelries of every 
grade, as does Rome. The more famous towns likely 
to be visited can show very creditable inns for the 
wayfarer, which are comfortable enough, especially 
to one inured to the hill towns of Italy or Sicily. 
Railway coaches, while still much below the standard 



8 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of the corridor cars of the more western nations, are 
comfortable enough for journeys of moderate length, 
and must inevitably improve from year to year as 
the hotels have done already. As for safety of person 
and property, that ceased to be a problem long ago. 
Brigandage has been unknown in the Peloponnesus 
for many a long year. Drunkenness is exceedingly 
rare, and begging is infinitely more uncommon than 
in most Italian provinces and cities. Time is certain 
to remove the objection of the comparative isolation 
of Greece still more than it has done at this writing, 
no doubt. It is still true that Greece is, to all intents 
and purposes, an island, despite its physical con- 
nection with the mainland of Europe. The northern 
mountains, with the wild and semi-barbaric inhab- 
itants thereamong, serve to insulate the kingdom 
effectually on the mainland side, just as the ocean 
insulates it on every other hand, so that one is really 
more out of the world at Athens than in Palermo. 
All arrival and departure is by sea ; and even when 
Athens shall be finally connected by rail with Con- 
stantinople and the north, the bulk of communica- 
tion between Greece and the western world will still 
be chiefly maritime, and still subject, as now, to the 
delays and inconveniences that must always beset 
an island kingdom. Daily steamers, an ideal not yet 
attained, will be the one effective way to shorten the 



TRAVELING IN GREECE 9 

distance between Hellas and Europe proper — not to 
mention America. 

It may be added that one need not be deterred 
from a tour in Greece by a lack of knowledge of the 
tongue, any more than one need allow an unfamil- 
iarity with Italian to debar him from the pleasures 
of Italy. The essential and striking difference in the 
case is the distinctive form of the Greek letters, which 
naturally tends to confuse the unaccustomed visitor 
rather more than do Italian words, written in our 
own familiar alphabet. Still, even one quite unfa- 
miliar with the Hellenic text may visit the country 
with comparatively little inconvenience from his igno- 
rance, if content to follow the frequented routes, since 
in these days perfect English is spoken at all large 
hotels, and French at large and small alike. Indeed, 
the prevalence of French among all classes is likely 
to surprise one at first. The Greeks are excellent 
linguists, and many a man or woman of humble sta- 
tion will be found to possess a fair working know- 
ledge of the Gallic tongue. It is entirely probable that 
in a few more years the effect of the present strong 
tendency toward emigration to America will reflect 
even more than it does now a general knowledge of 
English among the poorer people. I have frequently 
met with men in obscure inland towns who spoke 
English well, and once or twice discovered that they 



lo GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

learned it in my own city, which has drawn heavily 
on the population of the Peloponnesus within recent 
years. 

If the traveler is fortunate enough to have studied 
ancient Greek in his school and college days, and — 
what is more rare — retains enough of it to enable 
him to recognize a few of the once familiar words, he 
will naturally find a considerable advantage therein. 
It is often stated that Greek has changed less since 
Agamemnon's time than English has altered since 
the days of Chaucer ; and while this generalization 
may not be strictly true, it is very near the fact, so 
that it is still possible for any student well versed in 
the ancient Greek to read a modern Athenian news- 
paper with considerable ease. The pronunciation, 
however, is vastly different from the systems taught 
in England and in America, so that even a good 
classical student requires long practice to deliver his 
Greek trippingly on the tongue in such wise that the 
modern Athenian can understand it. Grammatically 
speaking, Greek is to-day vastly simpler than it was 
in the days of Plato. It has been shorn of many of 
those fine distinctions that were, and are, such ter- 
rors to the American schoolboy. But the appearance 
of the letters and words, with their breathings and 
accents, is quite unchanged, and many of the ancient 
words are perfectly good in modern Greek with their 



TRAVELING IN GREECE ii 

old meanings unimpaired. When one has mastered 
the modern pronunciation, even to a very moderate 
degree, one is sure to find that the once despised 
"dead language " is not a dead language at all, but 
one in daily use by a nation of people who may claim 
with truth that they speak a speech as old as Aga- 
memnon and far more homogeneous in its descent 
than modern Italian as it comes from the Latin. 

It cannot be disguised, however, that it is very 
desirable at least to know the Greek alphabet, even 
if one does not speak or read the language, since 
this little knowledge will often serve to give one a 
clue to the names of streets or railroad stations. 
Aside from that, the few words the habitual traveler 
always picks up will serve as well in Greece as any- 
where. One should know, of course, the colloquial 
forms of asking "how much?" and for saying "It 
is too dear." These are the primal necessities of 
European travel, always and everywhere. With these 
alone as equipment, one may go almost anywhere 
on earth. In addition to these rudimentary essentials, 
the ever-versatile Baedeker supplies, I believe, phrases 
of a simple kind, devised for every possible contin- 
gency, remote or otherwise, which might beset the 
traveler — omitting, curiously enough, the highly use- 
ful expression for hot water, which the traveler will 
speedily discover is " zesto nerd." Among the con- 



12 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

veniences, though not essential, might be included a 
smattering of knowledge of the Greek numerals to 
be used in bargaining with merchants and cab-drivers. 
But since the Greek merchant, for reasons which 
will later appear, is never without his pad and pen- 
cil, and since the written figures are the same as our 
own, the custom is to conduct bargains with Euro- 
peans generally by written symbols. The inevitable 
haggling over prices in the small shops requires little 
more than the sign manual, plus a determination to 
seem indifferent at all hazards. The Greek merchant, 
like every other, regards the voyager from foreign 
parts as legitimate prey, and long experience has led 
him to expect his price to be questioned. Hence 
nothing would surprise a small dealer more than to 
be taken at his initial figure, and the process of ar- 
riving at some middle ground remotely resembling 
reasonableness is often a complicated but perfectly 
good-humored affair. 

The cab-drivers present rather more difficulty. 
They seldom speak French and they carry no writing 
pads. The result is a frequent misunderstanding as 
to both price and destination, while in the settlement 
of all differences at the close of the " course " both 
cabby and his fare are evidently at a mutual linguis- 
tic disadvantage. The trouble over the destination 
is twofold, as a rule. Part of the time the cabman 



TRAVELING IN GREECE 13 

is "green" and not well acquainted with the city; 
and part of the time he is wholly unable to recog- 
nize, in the name pronounced to him, any sugges- 
tion of a street he may know perfectly well when 
pronounced with the proper accent. The element of 
accent is highly important in speaking Greek ; for 
unless the stress is properly laid, a word will often 
elude entirely the comprehension of the native, al- 
though every syllable be otherwise correctly sounded. 
The names of the Greek streets are all in the geni- 
tive case, which makes the matter still worse. It is of 
small avail to say " Hermes Street " to a driver. He 
must have the Greek for " Street of Hermes " in order 
to get the idea clearly in mind. It is not safe to gener- 
alize, but I incline to rate the Greeks as rather slower 
than Italians at grasping a foreigner's meaning, de- 
spite their cleverness and quickness at acquiring other 
languages themselves. However, this is getting con- 
siderably ahead of our narrative and in danger of 
losing sight of the main point, which is that Greece 
is easy enough to visit and enjoy, even if one is igno- 
rant of the language. For those who feel safer to 
know a trifle of it, there is ample time on the steamer 
voyage toward the Grecian goal to acquire all that 
ordinary necessities demand. 

Let it be said, in passing from these general and 
preliminary remarks to a more detailed discussion of 



14 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Hellenic travel, that the modern Greek has lost none 
of his ancient prototype's reverence for the guest as 
a person having the highest claims upon him and 
none of the ancient regard for the sacred name of 
hospitality. Whatever may be said of the modern 
Greek character, it cannot be called in question as 
lacking in cordiality and kindness to the stranger. 
The most unselfish entertainer in the world is the 
Greek, who conceives the idea that he may be able to 
add to your happiness by his courtesy, and this is true 
in the country as well as in the city. The native met 
on the highway has always a salutation for you. If 
it is the season for harvesting grapes, you are wel- 
come to taste and see that they are good. He will 
welcome you to his house and set before you the 
best it affords, the sweet "sumadha" or almond 
milk, the rich preserved quince, the glass of pungent 
"mastika," or perhaps a bit of smoke-cured ham 
from the earthen jar which is kept for just such occa- 
sions as this. If he sets out to entertain, nothing is 
done by halves. The Greek bearing gifts need cause 
no fear to-day, unless it be a fear of superabundant 
hospitality such as admits of no repayment. He will 
drive a hard bargain with you in business, no doubt. 
Occasionally an unscrupulous native will commit a 
petty theft, as in any other country where only man 
is vile. But once appear to him in the guise of friend- 



TRAVELING IN GREECE 15 

ship and he will prove himself the most obliging 
creature in the world. He may not be as well aware 
of the general history of his remote ancestors as you 
are yourself, but what he does know about his vicin- 
ity he will relate to you with pride and explicitness. 
Curiously enough, the Greek in ordinary station is 
likely to think you wish to see modern rather than 
ancient things. He cannot understand why you go 
every evening to the Acropolis and muse on the steps 
of the Parthenon while you omit to visit the villas 
of Kephissia or Tato'is. He would rather show you 
a tawdry pseudo-Byzantine church than a ruined 
temple. But the cordial spirit is there, and everybody 
who ever visited Greece has had occasion to know 
it and admire it. 

There remains necessary a word as to the choice 
of routes to Greece. As in the case of Venice, one 
may enter by either the front or the back door, so to 
speak ; and probably, as in the case of Venice, more 
actually elect to enter by the rear. The two gateways 
of Hellas are the Piraeus at the eastern front, and 
Patras at the back. Either may be selected as the 
point for beginning a land journey in the kingdom, 
and each has certain advantages. In any event the 
visitor should enter by one portal and leave by the 
other, and the direction may safely be left to be de- 
cided by the convenience and aims of each particular 



i6 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

visitor's case. Taking Naples as the natural start- 
ing-point of American travelers, two routes lie open. 
One is the railroad to Brindisi, traversing the moun- 
tainous Italian interior to the Adriatic coast, where 
on stated days very comfortable steamers ply be- 
tween Brindisi and Patras, touching at Corfu. The 
other route is from Naples to the Piraeus by sea on 
either French or Italian steamers, the latter lines 
being slower and enabling stops in Sicily and in 
Crete. To those fortunately possessed of ample time 
and willing to see something of Magna Graecia as 
well as of Greece proper, the slower route is decid- 
edly to be recommended. 

For the purposes of this book let us choose to enter 
Greece by her imposing main portal of the Piraeus, 
setting at naught several considerations which in- 
cline us to believe that, on the whole, the advantage 
lies rather with the contrary choice. Whatever else 
may be said in favor of either selection, it remains 
true that in any case one immediately encounters 
mythology and legend in the shape of the wily 
Ulysses, and is thus at once en rapport with Grecian 
things. The steamers from Naples must sail through 
the Strait of Messina, between Scylla and Charybdis, 
once the terror of those mariners who had the expe- 
riences of Homer's wandering hero before their eyes ; 
while not far below Charybdis and just off the Sicil- 



TRAVELING IN GREECE 17 

ian shore they still show the wondering traveler a 
number of small rocks, rising abruptly from the 
ocean, as the very stones that Polyphemus hurled 
in his blind rage after the fleeing Odysseus, but 
fortunately without doing him any harm. If, on the 
contrary, we sail from Brindisi to Patras, we must 
pass Corfu, which as all the world knows was the 
island on which Odysseus was cast from his ship and 
where, after he had refreshed himself with sleep, he 
was awakened by the laughter of Nausicaa and her 
maids as they played at ball after the washing was 
done. Whichever way we go, we soon find that we 
have run into a land older than those with which we 
have been familiar, whose legends greet us even at 
this distance over miles of tossing waves. Let those 
who are content to voyage with us through the pages 
that follow, be content to reserve Corfu for the home- 
ward journey, and to assume that our prow is headed 
now toward Crete, through a tossing sea such as led 
the ancients to exclaim, " The Cretan sea is wide ! " 
The shadowy mountains on the left are the lofty 
southern prongs of the Grecian peninsula. Ahead, 
and not yet visible above the horizon, is the sharp, 
razor-like edge of Crete, and the dawn should find 
us in harbor at Canea. 



CHAPTER II. 


CRETE 


%^JM 


4^M^ 


i^^S 




i 


^'Wlis^ 


'Mm 


^5®-^^ 



THE island of Crete, lying like a long, narrow 
bar across the mouth of the ^gean Sea, pre- 
sents a mountainous and rugged appearance to one 
approaching from any side. Possessing an extreme 
length of about one hundred and sixty miles, it is 
nowhere more than thirty-five miles in width, and in 
places much less than that. A lofty backbone of 
mountain runs through it from end to end. In all its 
coast-line few decent harbors are to be found, and 
that of the thriving city of Canea, near the north- 
western end of the island, is no exception. In ancient 
times the fortifications and moles that were built to 
protect the ports had in view the small sailing vessels 
of light draught which were then common, and to- 
day it is necessary for steamers of any size to anchor 
in the practically open roadsteads outside the harbor 
proper. Needless to say, landing in small boats from 
a vessel stationed at this considerable distance out- 
side the breakwater is a matter largely dependent 



CRETE 19 

on the wind and weather, not only at Canea, with 
which we are at present concerned, but at Candia, of 
which we shall speak later. In a north wind, such as 
frequently blows for days together, a landing on the 
northern coast is often quite impossible, and steam- 
ers have been known to lie for days off the island 
waiting a chance to approach and discharge. This 
contretemps, however, is less to be feared at Canea 
because of the proximity of the excellent though 
isolated Suda Bay, which is landlocked and deep, 
affording quiet water in any weather, but presenting 
the drawback that it is about four miles from the city 
of Canea, devoid of docks and surrounded by flat 
marshes. Nevertheless, steamers finding the weather 
too rough off the port do proceed thither on occasion 
and transact their business there, though with some 
difficulty. The resort to Suda, however, is seldom 
made save in exceedingly rough weather, for the 
stout shore boats of the Cretans are capable of brav- 
ing very considerable waves and landing passengers 
and freight before the city itself in a fairly stiff north- 
west gale, as our own experience in several Cretan 
landings has proven abundantly. It is not a trip to 
be recommended to the timorous, however, when the 
sea is high ; for although it is probably not as dan- 
gerous as it looks, the row across the open water 
between steamer and harbor is certainly rather terri- 



20 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

fying in appearance, as the boats rise and fall, now 
in sight of each other on the crest of the waves, 
now disappearing for what seem interminable inter- 
vals in the valleys of water between what look like 
mountains of wave tossing angrily on all sides. The 
boatmen are skillful and comparatively few seas are 
shipped, but even so it is a passage likely to be 
dampening to the ardor in more ways than one. On 
a calm day, when the wind is light or ofTshore, there 
is naturally no trouble, and the boatmen have never 
seemed to me rapacious or insolent, but quite ready 
to abide by the very reasonable tariff charge for the 
round trip. In bad weather, as is not unnatural, it often 
happens that the men request a gratuity over and 
above the established franc-and-a-half rate, on the 
plea that the trip has been "molto cattivo" and the 
labor consequently out of all proportion to the tariff 
charge — which is true. It is no light task for three 
or four stout natives to row a heavy boat containing 
eight people over such a sea as often is to be found 
running off Canea, fighting for every foot of advance, 
and easing off now and then to put the boat head up 
to an unusually menacing comber. 

The landing at Canea, if the weather permits land- 
ing at all, is on a long curving stone quay, lined 
with picturesque buildings, including a mosque with 
its minaret, the latter testifying to the considerable 




LANDING-PLACE AT CANEA 



CRETE 21 

residuum of Turkish and Mohammedan population 
that remains in this polyglot island, despite its pre- 
sent Greek rule under the oversight of the Christian 
powers of Europe. The houses along the quay are 
mostly a grayish white, with the light green shutters 
one learns to associate with similar towns everywhere 
in the ^gean. Behind the town at no very great 
distance may be seen rising lofty and forbidding 
mountains, snowcapped down to early May ; but a 
brief ride out from the city to Suda Bay will serve to 
reveal some fertile and open valleys such as save 
Crete from being a barren and utterly uninviting 
land. The ordinary stop of an Italian steamer at this 
port is something like six. or eight hours, which is 
amply sufficient to give a very good idea of Canea 
and its immediate neighborhood. The time is enough 
for a walk through the tortuous and narrow high- 
ways and byways of the city — walks in which one 
is attended by a crowd of small boys from the start, 
and indeed by large boys as well, all most persist- 
ently offering their most unnecessary guidance in 
the hopepf receiving " backsheesh," which truly Ori- 
ental word is to be heard at every turn, and affords 
one more enduring local monument to the former 
rule of the unspeakable Turk. These lads apparently 
speak a smattering of every known language, and 
are as quick and alert as the New York or Naples 



22 GREECE AND THE tEGEAN ISLANDS 

gamin. Incidentally, I wonder if every other visitor 
to Canea is afflicted with " Mustapha " ? On our last 
landing there we were told, as we went over the side 
of the steamer to brave the tempestuous journey 
ashore in the boat which bobbed below, to be sure 
to look for " Mustapha." The captain always recom- 
mended Mustapha, he said, and no Americano that 
ever enlisted the services of Mustapha as guide, phi- 
losopher, and friend for four Canean hours had ever 
regretted it. So we began diligent inquiry of the 
boatman if he knew this Mustapha. Yes, he did — 
and who better? Was he not Mustapha himself, in 
his own proper person? Inwardly congratulating 
ourselves at finding the indispensable with such re- 
markable promptitude, we soon gained the harbor, 
and the subsequent landing at the quay was assisted 
in by at least forty hardy Caneans, including one 
bullet-headed Nubian, seven shades darker than 
a particularly black ace of clubs, who exhibited a 
mouthful of ivory and proclaimed himself, unsoli- 
cited, as the true and only Mustapha, — a declaration 
that caused an instant and spontaneous howl of de- 
rision from sundry other bystanders, who promptly 
filed their claims to that Oriental name and all the 
excellences that it implied. Apparently Mustapha's 
other name was Legion. Search for him was aban- 
doned on the spot, and I would advise any sub- 



CRETE 23 

sequent traveler to do the same. Search is quite 
unnecessary. Wherever two or three Cancans are 
gathered together, there is Mustapha in the midst of 
them, — and perhaps two or three of him. 

It is by no means easy to get rid of the Cancan 
urchins who follow you away from the landing-place 
and into the quaint and narrow streets of the town. 
By deploying your landing party, which is generally 
sufficiently numerous for the purpose, in blocks of 
three or four, the convoy of youth may be split into 
detachments and destroyed in detail. It may be an 
inexpensive and rather entertaining luxury to permit 
the brightest lad of the lot to go along, although, 
as has been intimated, guidance is about the last 
thing needed in Canea. The streets are very narrow, 
very crooked, and not over clean, and are lined with 
houses having those projecting basketwork windows 
overhead, such as are common enough in every 
Turkish or semi-Turkish city. Many of the women 
go heavily veiled, sometimes showing the upper face 
and sometimes not even that, giving an additional 
Oriental touch to the street scenes. This veiling is in 
part a survival of Turkish usages, and in part is due 
to the dust and glare. It is a practice to be met with 
in many other ^gean islands as well as in Crete. 
It is this perpetual recurrence of Mohammedan 
touches that prevents Canea from seeming typically 



24 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Greek, despite its nominal allegiance. To all outward 
seeming it is Turkish still, and mosques and min- 
arets rise above its roofs in more than one spot as 
one surveys it from the harbor or from the hills. The 
streets with their narrow alleys and overshadowing 
archways are tempting indeed to the camera, and it 
may as well be said once and for all that it is a grave 
mistake to visit Greece and the adjacent lands with- 
out that harmless instrument of retrospective pleasure. 
As for sights, Canea must be confessed to offer 
none that are of the traditional kind, " double-starred 
in Baedeker." There is no museum there, and no 
ruins. The hills are too far away to permit an ascent 
for a view. The palace of the Greek royal commis- 
sioner. Prince George, offers slight attraction to the 
visitor compared with the scenes of the streets and 
squares in the town itself, the coffee-houses, and 
above all the curious shops. Canea is no mean place 
for the curio hunter with an eye to handsome, though 
barbaric, blankets, saddle-bags, and the like. The 
bizarre effect of the scene is increased by the mani- 
fold racial characteristics of face, figure, and dress 
that one may observe there ; men and women 
quaintly garbed in the peasant dress of half a dozen 
different nations. In a corner, sheltered from the heat 
or from the wind, as the case may be, sit knots of 
weazen old men, cloaks wrapped about their shoul- 



CRETE 25 

ders, either drinking their muddy coffee or plying 
some trifling trade while they gossip, — doubtless 
about the changed times. From a neighboring coffee- 
house there will be heard to trickle a wild and bar- 
baric melody tortured out of a long-suffering fiddle 
that cannot, by any stretch of euphemism, be called 
a violin ; or men may be seen dancing in a sedate 
and solemn circle, arms spread on each other's shoul- 
ders in the Greek fashion, to the minor cadences of 
the plaintive " bouzouki," or Greek guitar. There are 
shops of every kind, retailing chiefly queer woolen 
bags, or shoes of soft, white skins, or sweetmeats of 
the Greek and Turkish fashion. Here it is possible 
for the first time to become acquainted with the cele- 
brated "loukoumi" of Syra, a soft paste made of 
gums, rosewater, and flavoring extracts, with an ad- 
dition of chopped nuts, each block of the candy rolled 
in soft sugar. It is much esteemed by the Greeks, 
who are notorious lovers of sweetmeats, and it is 
imitated and grossly libeled in America under the 
alias of "Turkish Delight." 

From Canea a very good road leads out over a 
gently rolling country to Suda Bay. Little is to be 
seen there, however, save a very lovely prospect of 
hill and vale, and a few warships of various nations 
lying at anchor, representing the four or five jealous 
powers who maintain a constant watch over the 



26 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

destinies of this troublous isle. The cosmopolitan 
character of these naval visitants is abundantly testi- 
fied to by the signs that one may see along the high- 
road near Suda, ringing all possible linguistic changes 
on legends that indicate facilities for the entertain- 
ment of Jack ashore, and capable of being summed 
up in the single phrase, "Army and Navy Bar." The 
Greeks were ever a hospitable race. 

The road to Suda, however, is far from being lined 
by nothing more lovely than these decrepit wine 
shops for the audacious tar. The three or four miles 
of its length lie through fertile fields devoted to olive 
orchards and to the cultivation of grain, and one 
would look far for a more picturesque sight than 
the Cretan farmer driving his jocund team afield — 
a team of large oxen attached to a primitive plow 
— or wielding his cumbersome hoe in turning up the 
sod under his own vine and olive trees. It is a pleas- 
ing and pastoral spectacle. The ride out to Suda is 
easily made while the steamer waits, in a very com- 
fortable carriage procurable in the public square for 
a moderate sum. It may be as well to remark, how- 
ever, that carriages in Greece are not, as a rule, 
anywhere nearly as cheap as in Italy. 

It is a long jump from Canea to Candia, the sec- 
ond city of the island, situated many miles farther to 
the east along this northern shore. But it easily sur- 



CRETE 27 

passes Canea in classic interest, being the site of the 
traditional ruler of Crete in the most ancient times, 
— King Minos, — of whom we shall have much to 
say. Candia, as we shall call it, although its local 
name is Megalokastron, is not touched by any of 
the steamers en route from the west to Athens, but 
must be visited in connection with a cruise among 
the islands of the ^gean. From the sea it resembles 
Canea in nature as well as in name. It shows the 
same harbor fortifications of Venetian build, and 
bears the same lion of St. Mark. It possesses the 
same lack of harborage for vessels other than small 
sailing craft. Its water front is lined with white houses 
with green blinds, and slender white minarets stand 
loftily above the roofs. Its streets and squares are 
much like Canea's, too, although they are rather 
broader and more modern in appearance ; while the 
crowds of people in the streets present a similar array 
of racial types to that already referred to in describ- 
ing the former city. More handsome men are to be 
seen, splendid specimens of humanity clad in the 
blue baggy trousers and jackets of Turkish cut, and 
wearing the fez. Candia is well walled by a very 
thick and lofty fortification erected in Venetian times, 
and lies at the opening of a broad valley stretching 
across the island to the south, and by its topography 
and central situation was the natural theatre of ac- 



28 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

tivity in the distant period with which we are about 
to make our first acquaintance. Even without leaving 
the city one may get some idea of the vast antiquity 
of some of its reUcs by a visit to the museum located 
in an old Venetian palace in the heart of the town, 
where are to be seen the finds of various excavators 
who have labored in the island. Most of these belong 
to a very remote past, antedating vastly the Myce- 
naean period, which used to seem so old, with its tra- 
ditions of Agamemnon and the sack of Troy. Here 
we encounter relics of monarchs who lived before 
Troy was made famous, and the English excavator, 
Evans, who has exhumed the palace of Minos not 
far outside the city gates, has classified the articles 
displayed as of the '* Minoan " period. It would be 
idle in this place to attempt any detailed explanation 
of the subdivisions of "early," "middle," and "late 
Minoan " which have been appended to the manifold 
relics to be seen in the museum collection, or to give 
any detailed description of them. It must suffice to 
say that the period represented is so early that any 
attempt to affix dates must be conjectural, and that 
we may safely take it in general terms as a period so 
far preceding the dawn of recorded history that it 
was largely legendary even in the time of the classic 
Greeks, who already regarded Minos himself as a 
demi-god and sort of immortal judge in the realm 



CRETE 29 

of the shades. The museum, with its hundreds of 
quaint old vases, rudely ornamented in geometric 
patterns, its fantastic and faded mural paintings, its 
sarcophagi, its implements of toil, and all the mani- 
fold testimony to a civilization so remote that it is 
overwhelming to the mind, will serve to hold the 
visitor long. Nor is it to be forgotten that among 
these relics from Cnossos, Phaestos, and Gortyn, are 
many contributed by the industry and energy of the 
American investigator, Mrs. Hawes {iiee Boyd), whose 
work in Crete has been of great value and archaeo- 
logical interest. 

Having whetted one's appetite for the remotely 
antique by browsing through this collection of trea- 
sures, one is ready enough to make the journey out 
to Cnossos, the site of the ancient palace, only four 
miles away. There is a good road, and it is possible 
to walk if desired, although it is about as hot and 
uninteresting a walk as can well be imagined. It is 
easier and better to ride, although the Cretan drivers 
in general, and the Candian ones in particular, enjoy 
the reputation of being about the most rapacious in 
the civilized world. On the way out to the palace at 
Cnossos, the road winds through a rolling country, 
and crosses repeatedly an old paved Turkish road, 
which must have been much less agreeable than 
the present one to traverse. On the right, far away to 



30 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the southwest, rises the peak which is supposed to be 
the birthplace of Zeus, the slopes of Mt. Ida. Crete 
is the land most sacred to Zeus of all the lands of the 
ancient world. Here his mother bore him, having fled 
thither to escape the wrath of her husband, the god 
Cronos, who had formed the unbecoming habit of 
swallowing his progeny as soon as they were born. 
Having been duly delivered of the child Zeus, his 
mother, Rhsea, wrapped up a stone in some cloth 
and presented it to Cronos, who swallowed it, per- 
suaded that he had once more ridded the world of 
the son it was predicted should oust him from his 
godlike dignities and power. But Rhaea concealed 
the real Zeus in a cave on Ida, and when he came to 
maturity he made war on Cronos and deprived him 
of his dominion. Hence Zeus, whose worship in Crete 
soon spread to other islands and mainland, was held 
in highest esteem in the isle of his birth, and his cult 
had for its symbol the double-headed axe, which we 
find on so many of the relics of the Candia museum 
and on the walls of the ancient palaces, like that we 
are on the way to visit at Cnossos. 

It is necessary to remark that there were two char- 
acters named Minos in the ancient mythology. The 
original of the name was the child of Zeus and 
Europa, and he ruled over Crete, where Saturn is 
supposed to have governed before him, proving a 



CRETE 31 

wise law-giver for the people. The other Minos was 
a grandson of the first, child of Lycastos and Ida. 
This Minos later grew up and married Pasiphae, 
whose unnatural passion begot the Minotaur, or sav- 
age bull with the body of a man and an appetite for 
human flesh. To house this monster Minos was com- 
pelled to build the celebrated labyrinth, and he fed 
the bull with condemned criminals, who were sent 
into the mazes of the labyrinth never to return. Still 
later, taking offense at the Athenians because in 
their Panathenaic games they had killed his own 
son, Minos sent an expedition against them, defeated 
them, and thereafter levied an annual tribute of seven 
boys and seven girls upon the inhabitants, who were 
taken to Crete and fed to the Minotaur. This cruel 
exaction continued until Theseus came to Crete and, 
with the aid of the thread furnished him by Ariadne, 
tracked his way into the labyrinth, slaughtered the 
monster and returned alive to the light of day. Of 
course such a network of myths, if it does nothing 
else, argues the great antiquity of the Minoan period, 
to which the ruins around Candia are supposed to 
belong, and they naturally lead us to an inquiry 
whether any labyrinth was ever found or supposed 
to be found in the vicinity. I believe there actually 
is an extensive artificial cave in the mountains south 
of Cnossos, doubtless an ancient subterranean quarry, 



32 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

which is called "the labyrinth" to-day, though it 
doubtless never sheltered the Minotaur. It is suffi- 
ciently large to have served once as the abode of 
several hundred persons during times of revolution, 
they living there in comparative comfort save for the 
lack of light ; and it is interesting to know that they 
employed Ariadne's device of the thread to keep 
them in touch with the passage out of their self- 
imposed prison when the political atmosphere cleared 
and it was safe to venture forth into the light of day. 
It seems rather more probable that the myth or legend 
of the labyrinth of Minos had its origin in the laby- 
rinthine character of the king's own palace, as it is 
now shown to have been a perfect maze of corridors 
and rooms, through which it is possible to wander 
at will, since the excavators have laid them open 
after the lapse of many centuries. A glance at the 
plans of the Cnossos palace in the guide-books, or a 
survey of them from the top of Mr. Evans's rather 
garish and incongruous but highly useful tower on 
the spot, will serve to show a network of passage- 
ways and apartments that might easily have given 
rise to the tale of the impenetrable man-trap which 
Theseus alone had the wit to evade. 

The ruins lie at the east of the high road, in a deep 
valley. Their excavation has been very complete and 
satisfactory, and while some restorations have been 



CRETE 33 

attempted here and there, chiefly because of absolute 
necessity to preserve portions of the structure, they 
are not such restorations as to jar on one, but exhibit 
a fidelity to tradition that saves them from the com- 
mon fate of such efforts. Little or no retouching was 
necessary in the case of the stupendous flights of 
steps that were found leading up to the door of this 
prehistoric royal residence, and which are the first of 
the many sights the visitor of to-day may see. It is 
in the so-called *' throne room of Minos " that the 
restoring hand is first met. Here it has been found 
necessary to provide a roof, that damage by weather 
be avoided ; and to-day the throne room is a dusky 
spot, rather below the general level of the place. Its 
chief treasure is the throne itself, a stone chair, carved 
in rather rudimentary ornamentation, and about the 
size of an ordinary chair. The roof is supported by 
the curious, top-heavy- looking stone pillars, that are 
known to have prevailed not only in the Minoan but 
in the Mycenaean period ; monoliths noticeably larger 
at the top than at the bottom, reversing the usual 
form of stone pillar with which later ages have made 
us more familiar. This quite illogical inversion of 
what we now regard as the proper form has been 
accounted for in theory, by assuming that it was the 
natural successor of the sharpened wooden stake. 
When the ancients adopted stone supports for their 



34 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

roofs, they simply took over the forms they had been 
famihar with in the former use of wood, and the result 
was a stone pillar that copied the earlier wooden one 
in shape. Time, of course, served to show that the 
natural way of building demanded the reversal of this 
custom ; but in the Mycenaean age it had not been 
discovered, for there are evidences that similar pillars 
existed in buildings of that period, and the represen- 
tation of a pillar that stands between the two lions 
on Mycenae's famous gate has this inverted form. 

Many hours may be spent in detailed examination 
of this colossal ruin, testifying to what must have 
been in its day an enormous and impressive palace. 
One cannot go far in traversing it without noticing 
the traces still evident enough of the fire that ob- 
viously destroyed it many hundred, if not several 
thousand, years before Christ. Along the western side 
have been discovered long corridors, from which 
scores of long and narrow rooms were to be entered. 
These, in the published plans, serve to give to the 
ruin a large share of its labyrinthine character. It 
seems to be agreed now that these were the store- 
rooms of the palace, and in them may still be seen 
the huge earthen jars which once served to con- 
tain the palace supplies. Long rows of them stand in 
the ancient hallways and in the narrow cells that 
lead off them, each jar large enough to hold a fair- 



CRETE 35 

sized man, and in number sufficient to have accom- 
modated Ali Baba and the immortal forty thieves. 
In the centre of the palace little remains ; but in the 
southeastern corner, where the land begins to slope 
abruptly to the valley below, there are to be seen 
several stories of the ancient building. Here one 
comes upon the rooms marked with the so-called 
" distaff " pattern, supposed to indicate that they were 
the women's quarters. The restorer has been busy 
here, but not offensively so. Much of the ancient 
wall is intact, and in one place is a bath-room with 
a very diminutive bath-tub still in place. Along the 
eastern side is also shown the oil press, where olives 
were once made to yield their coveted juices, and 
from the press proper a stone gutter conducted the 
fluid down to the point where jars were placed to 
receive it. This discovery of oil presses in ancient 
buildings, by the way, has served in more than one 
case to arouse speculation as to the antiquity of oil 
lamps, such as were once supposed to belong only to 
a much later epoch. Whether in the Minoan days 
they had such lamps or not, it is known that they had 
at least an oil press and a good one. In the side of 
the hill below the main palace of Minos has been un- 
earthed a smaller structure, which they now call the 
"villa," and in which several terraces have been un- 
covered rather similar to the larger building above. 



36 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Here is another throne room, cunningly contrived to 
be lighted by a long shaft of light from above falling 
on the seat of justice itself, while the rest of the room 
is in obscurity. 

It may be that it requires a stretch of the imagina- 
tion to compare the palace of Cnossos with Troy, 
but nevertheless there are one or two features that 
seem not unlike the discoveries made by Dr. Schlie- 
mann on that famous site. Notably so, it seems to 
me, are the traces of the final fire, which are to be seen 
at Cnossos as at Troy, and the huge jars, which maybe 
compared with the receptacles the Trojan excavators 
unearthed, and found still to contain dried peas and 
other things that the Trojans left behind when they 
fled from their sacked and burning city. Few are 
privileged to visit the site of Priam's city, which is 
hard indeed to reach ; but it is easy enough to make 
the excursion to Candia and visit the palace of old 
King Minos, which is amply worth the trouble, be- 
sides giving a glimpse of a civilization that is pos- 
sibly vastly older than even that of Troy and Mycenae. 
For those who reverence the great antiquities, Candia 
and its pre-classic suburb are distinctly worth visit- 
ing, and are unique among the sights of the ancient 
Hellenic and pre-Hellenic world. 



CHAPTER III. THE ENTRANCE 
TO GREECE 




LEAVING Crete behind, the steamer turns her 
prow northward into the ^gean toward Greece 
proper, and in the early morning, if all goes smoothly, 
will be found well inside the promontory of Sunium, 
approaching the Piraeus. One ought most infallibly 
to be early on deck, for the rugged, rocky shores of 
the Peloponnesus are close at hand on the left, in- 
dented here and there by deep inlets or gulfs, and 
looking as most travelers seem to think " Greece 
ought to look." If it is clear, a few islands may be 
seen on the right, though none of the celebrated ones 
are near enough to be seen with any satisfaction. 
Sunium itself is so far away to the eastward that it 
is impossible at this distance to obtain any idea of 
the ancient ruin that still crowns its summit. 

Although to enter Greece by way of the Piraeus is 
actually to enter the front door of the kingdom, never- 
theless, as has been hinted heretofore, one may vote 



38 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

on the whole that it is better to make this the point 
of departure instead of that of initiation. Leaving 
Greece as most of us do with a poignant sense of 
regret, it is not unfitting that we depart with the bene- 
diction of the old Acropolis of Athens, crowned with 
its famous ruins, which are to be seen even when far 
at sea, glowing in the afternoon sun, and furnishing 
an ideal last view of this land of golden memories. 
Simply because it makes such an ideal last view, 
leaving the crowning " glory that was Greece " last 
in the mind's eye, one may well regard this point as 
the best one for leaving, whatever may be said for 
it as a place of beginning an acquaintance with 
Hellas. It must be confessed that to one approach- 
ing for the first time, save in the clearest weather, 
the view of the Acropolis from the sea is likely to 
be somewhat disappointing, because the locating of 
it in the landscape is not an easy matter. Under a 
cloudy sky — and there are occasionally such skies 
even in sunny Greece — it is not at all easy to pick 
out the Acropolis, lying low in the foreground and 
flanked by such superior heights as Lycabettus and 
Pentelicus. Hence it is that the voyager, returning 
home from a stay in Athens, enjoys the seaward view 
of the receding site far more than the approaching 
newcomer ; and it must be added that, however one 
may reverence the Acropolis from his reading, it can 



THE ENTRANCE TO GREECE 39 

never mean so much to him as it will after a few days 
of personal acquaintance, when he has learned to 
know its every stone. What slight disappointment 
one may feel on first beholding the ancient rock of 
Athena from the ocean, is, after all, only momentary 
and due solely to the distance. It is certain to be re- 
moved later when closer acquaintance shows it to be 
the stupendous rock it really is, standing alone, and 
seen to better advantage than when the hills that wall 
the Attic plain overshadow it in the perspective. 

As the steamer approaches, the loftier heights of 
Hymettus, Pentelicus, Parnes, ^gina, and Salamis 
intrude themselves and will not be denied, framing 
between them the valley in which Athens lies, ob- 
scured for the time being by the tall chimneys and 
the forest of masts that herald the presence of the 
Piraeus in the immediate foreground. That city is as 
of yore the seaport of Athens, and is a thriving city 
in itself, although from its proximity to the famous 
capital it loses individual prestige, and seems rather 
like a dependence of the main city than a separate 
and important town, rivaling Athens herself in size, 
if not in history. 

Perhaps the most trying experience to the new- 
comer is this landing at the Piraeus and the labor 
involved in getting ashore and up to Athens ; but, 
after all, it is trying only in the sense that it is a mat- 



40 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

ter for much bargaining, in which the unfamiliar vis- 
itor is at an obvious disadvantage. As in all Greek 
ports, the landing is to be accomplished only by small 
boats, which are manned by watermen having no 
connection at all with the steamship companies. It 
would seem to be the reasonable duty of a steamer 
line to provide facilities for setting its passengers 
ashore, and in time this may be done ; but it is an 
unfortunate fact that it is not done now, and the pas- 
senger is left to bargain for himself with the crowd of 
small craft that surrounds the vessel as she is slowly 
and painfully berthed. The harbor itself is seen to 
be a very excellent and sheltered one, protected by 
two long breakwaters, which admit of hardly more 
than a single large vessel at a time between their 
narrow jaws. Within, it opens out into a broad ex- 
panse of smooth water, lined throughout its periph- 
ery by a low stone quay. While the steamer is being 
warped to her position, always with the stern toward 
the shore, a fleet of small boats, most of them flying 
the flags of hotels in Athens or of the several tourist 
agencies, eagerly swarm around and await the lower- 
ing of the landing stairs, meantime gesticulating vio- 
lently to attract the attention of passengers on deck. 
Little that is definite, however, can be done until the 
gangway is lowered and the boatmen's representa- 
tives have swarmed on the deck itself. There is time 



THE ENTRANCE TO GREECE 41 

and to spare, so that the voyager has no occasion to 
hurry, but may possess his soul in patience and seek 
to make the most advantageous terms possible with 
the lowest bidder. The boatmen, be well assured, know 
English enough to negotiate the bargain. 

Despite the apparent competition, which ought by 
all the laws of economics to be the life of trade, it 
will doubtless be found quite impossible to make 
any arrangement for landing and getting up to the 
city for a sum much under twelve francs. That is the 
published tariff of the hotels which send out boats, 
and if one is certain of his stopping-place in Athens 
he will doubtless do well to close immediately with 
the boatman displaying the insignia of that partic- 
ular hostelry. But it is entirely probable that any 
regular habitue would say that the hotel tariff is 
grossly out of proportion to the actual cost, since the 
boatman's fee should be not more than a franc and 
the ride to Athens not more than six. As for the 
tourist agencies, they may be depended upon to ask 
more than the hotel runners do, and the only limit 
is the visitor's credulity and ignorance of the place. 
Whatever bargain is made, the incoming passenger 
will, if wise, see to it that it is understood to cover 
everything, including the supposititious "landing 
tax" that is so often foisted upon the customer after 
landing in Athens as an " extra." These are doubtless 



42 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

sordid details, but necessary ones, and matters which 
it may prove profitable to understand before venturing 
in. Having dismissed them as such, we may turn with 
more enjoyment to the prospect now presenting itself. 

Piraeus, as all the world knows, is the port of Athens 
now as in classic times. Topographically it has three 
good harbors, the Piraeus proper, Zea, and Munychia 
— the latter name also applying to the rocky promon- 
tory which juts out and separates the harbor from the 
Saronic Gulf. It was on the Munychia peninsula that 
Themistocles in 493 B, C. erected a town, and it was 
Themistocles, also, who conceived and carried out 
the scheme for the celebrated " long walls " which ran 
from the port up to Athens, and made the city prac- 
tically impregnable by making it quite independent 
of the rest of Attica, so long as the Athenian suprem- 
acy by sea remained unquestioned. Thus it came to 
pass that, during the Peloponnesian War, when all the 
rest of the Attic plain had fallen into the hands of 
the Lacedaemonians, Athens herself remained practi- 
cally undisturbed, thanks not only to the long walls 
and ships, but also to the fortifications of Cimon 
and Pericles. The Athenian navy, however, was 
finally overwhelmed in the battle of ^gospotamoi in 
404 B, c, and the port fell a prey to the enemy, who 
demolished the long walls, to the music of the flute. 

Ten years later, when Athens had somewhat recov- 



THE ENTRANCE TO GREECE 43 

ered from the first defeat, Conon rebuilt the walls, 
and Athens, with Piraeus, for a space enjoyed a re- 
turn of her ancient greatness and prosperity. The 
Roman under Sulla came in 86 B. C, and practically 
put an end to the famous capital, which became an 
inconsiderable village, and so remained down to the 
Grecian risorgimento. The present city of Piraeus, and 
the city of Athens also, practically date from 1836, 
though the old names had been revived the year pre- 
vious. Up to that time the spot had for years passed 
under the unclassic name of Porto Leone. 

Inasmuch as the fame of Athens and her empire 
rested on the navy as its foundation, and inasmuch 
as the navy made its home in the waters of the Pi- 
raeus and Munychia, the locality has its glorious mem- 
ories to share with the still more glorious traditions 
of the neighboring Salamis, where the Persians of 
Xerxes were put to such utter rout. It was from this 
harbor that the splendid, but ill-fated, Sicilian expe- 
dition set out, with flags flying, paeans sounding, and 
libations pouring. And it was to the Piraeus that a 
lone survivor of that sorry campaign returned to relate 
the incredible news to the village barber. 

The harbor of the Piraeus is generally full of ship- 
ping of all sorts, including steamers of every size 
and nationality, as well as high-sided schooners that 
recall the Homeric epithet of the " hollow ships." 



44 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Some are en route to or from Constantinople, Alexan- 
dria, Naples, the ports of the Adriatic, the Orient, — 
everywhere. The Greek coastwise vessels often bear 
their names printed in large white letters amid- 
ships, familiar names looking decidedly odd in the 
Greek characters. All are busily loading or discharg- 
ing, for the Piraeus is, as ever, a busy port. Under 
the sterns of several such ships the shore boat passes, 
its occupants ducking repeatedly under the sagging 
stern cables, until in a brief time all are set ashore 
at the custom-house. That institution, however, need 
give the visitor little apprehension. The examination 
of reasonable luggage is seldom or never oppressive 
or fraught with inconvenience, doubtless because the 
visitor is duly recognized by the government as a 
being whose presence is bound to be of profit, and 
who should not, therefore, be wantonly discouraged 
at the very threshold of the kingdom. Little is in- 
sisted on save a declaration that the baggage con- 
tains no tobacco or cigarettes. The porters as a rule 
are more tolerant of copper tips than the present 
rapidly spoiling race of Italian /accktm. 

The sensible way to proceed to Athens is by car- 
riage, taking the Phalerum road. The electric tram, 
which is a very commodious third-rail system resem- 
bling the subway trains of Boston or New York, is 
all very well if one is free from impedimenta. But for 



THE ENTRANCE TO GREECE 45 

the ordinary voyager, with several valises or trunks, 
the carriage is not only best but probably the most 
economical in the end. The carriages are comfortable, 
and capable of carrying four persons with reasonable 
baggage. 

Little of interest will be found in driving out of the 
Piraeus, which is a frankly commercial place, devoid 
of architectural or enduring classical recommenda- 
tions. The long walls that once connected the port 
with Athens have disappeared almost beyond recall, 
although the sites are known. Nor is the beach of New 
Phalerum (pronounced Fal-eron) much more attrac- 
tive than the Piraeus itself. It reminds one strongly 
of suburban beach places at home, lined as it is with 
cheap cottages, coffee-houses, restaurants, bicycle 
shops, and here and there a more pretentious resi- 
dence, while at least one big and garish hotel is to 
be seen. The sea, varying from a light green to a 
deep Mediterranean blue, laps gently along the side 
of the highway toward the open ocean, while ahead, 
up the straight boulevard, appears the Acropolis of 
Athens, now seen for the first time in its proper light 
as one of the most magnificent ruins of the earth. 
The road thither is good but uncomfortably new. 
When its long lines of pepper trees, now in their 
infancy, shall have attained their growth, it will be a 
highway lined with shade and affording a prospect 



46 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of much beauty. In its present state, however, which 
is destined to endure for some years to come, it is a 
long, straight, and rather dreary boulevard, relieved 
only by the glorious prospect of the crowning ruin of 
Athens something like four miles away, but tower- 
ing alone and grand, and no longer dwarfed by the 
surrounding gray hills. Still this route seems to me 
infinitely better, even to-day, than the older road 
from Piraeus, which approaches Athens from the west- 
ern side without going near the sea, but which is 
not without its charms, nevertheless, and certainly 
does give the one who takes it a splendid view of 
the imposing western front of the Acropolis and its 
array of temples, across a plain green with waving 
grasses. 

Approaching the city from the Phalerum side 
serves to give a very striking impression of the inac- 
cessibility of the Acropolis, showing its precipitous 
southern face, crowned by the ruined Parthenon, 
whose ancient pillars, weathered to a golden brown, 
stand gleaming in the sun against the deep and bril- 
liant blue of the Greek sky. Those who have pictured 
the temple as glistening white will be vastly surprised, 
no doubt, on seeing its actual color ; for the iron and 
other metals present in the Pentelic marble, of which 
it was built, have removed almost entirely the white 
or creamy tints, and have given in their place a rich 



THE ENTRANCE TO GREECE 47 

mottled appearance, due to the ripe old age of this 
shrine. 

Aside from the ever present prospect of the Acro- 
polis and its promise of interest in store, the road to 
Athens is devoid of much to attract attention. The 
long, gray ridge of Hymettus, which runs along just 
east of the road, of course is a famous mountain by 
reason of its well-known brand of honey, if for no 
other reason. Halfway up the gradual incline to the 
city there is a small and rather unattractive church, 
said to be a votive offering made by the king in thank- 
fulness at escaping the bullets of two would-be assas- 
sins at this point. On the left, and still far ahead, rises 
the hill, crowned by the ruined but still conspicuous 
monument of Philopappus. Situated on a command- 
ing eminence south of the Acropolis, this monument 
is a dominant feature of almost every view of Athens ; 
but it is entirely out of proportion to the importance 
of the man whose vague memory it recalls. 

Passing the eastern and most lofty end of the Acro- 
polis, the carriage at last turns into the outskirts of 
the city proper and traverses a broad and pleasant 
avenue, its wide sidewalks shaded by graceful and 
luxuriant pepper trees, while the prosperous looking 
houses give an attractive first impression of residen- 
tial Athens. The modern is curiously intermingled 
with the ancient ; for on the right, in the fields which 



48 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

border the highway, are to be seen the few remaining 
colossal columns of the rather florid temple of Olym- 
pian Zeus and the fragmentary arch of Hadrian, the 
Roman emperor in whose reign that temple was at 
last completed. It is peculiarly fitting to enter Athens 
between these ruins on the one hand and the Acro- 
polis on the other, for they are so characteristic of 
the great chief attraction of the place, — its immortal 
past. 

The city proper now opens out before, and as the 
carriage enters the great principal square of Athens, 
the " Syntagma," or Place de la Constitution, hand- 
some streets may be seen radiating from it in all 
directions, giving a general impression of cleanly 
whiteness, while the square itself, spreading a wide 
open space before the huge and rather barnlike royal 
palace, is filled with humanity passing to and fro, or 
seated at small tables in the open air, partaking of 
the coffee so dear to the heart of the Greek ; and 
carriages dash here and there, warning pedestrians 
only by the driver's repeated growl of " empros, em- 
pros!" (e/A7rpos), which is exactly equivalent to the golf- 
player's " fore ! " And here in the crowded square we 
may leave the traveler for the present, doubtless not 
far from his hotel, — for hotels are all about, — with 
only the parting word of advice that he shall early 
seek repose, in the certitude that there will be some 



THE ENTRANCE TO GREECE 49 

little noise. For the Athenians are almost as noisy 
and nocturnal creatures as the Palermitans or Nea- 
politans, and the nights will be filled with music and 
many other sounds of revelry. To be sure, there are 
no paved streets and no clanging trolley cars ; but 
the passing throngs will make up for any lack in 
that regard, even until a late hour of the night. 



CHAPTER IV. ATHENS ; THE 
MODERN CITY 




ATHENS lies in a long and narrow plain between 
two rocky mountain ridges that run down 
from the north. The plain to-day is neither interest- 
ing nor particularly fertile, although it is still tilled with 
some success. Once when it was better watered by 
the Cephissus and Ilissus rivers, whose courses are 
still visible though in the main dry and rocky, it was 
doubtless better able to support the local population ; 
but to-day it is rather a bare and unattractive inter- 
vale between mountains quite as bare — gray, rocky 
heights, covered with little vegetation save the sparse 
gorse and thyme. At that point in the plain where a 
lofty, isolated, and nearly oblong rock, with precipi- 
tous sides, invited the foundation of a citadel, Athens 
sprang into being. And there she stands to-day, hav- 
ing pivoted around the hoary Acropolis crag for 
centuries, first south, then west, then north, until 
the latter has become the final abiding place of the 



ATHENS ; THE MODERN CITY 51 

modern town, while the older sites to the southward 
and westward lie almost deserted save for the activ- 
ities of the archaeologists and students, who have 
found them rich and interesting ground for explora- 
tion. Always, however, the Acropolis was the fulcrum 
or focus, and it was on this unique rock that Poseidon 
and Athena waged their immortal contest for the 
possession of the Attic plain. Tradition says that 
Poseidon smote with his trident and a salt spring 
gushed forth from the cleft rock, thus proving his 
power ; but that the judgment of the gods was in 
favor of Athena, who made to spring up from the 
ground an olive tree. Wherefore the land was allotted 
to her, and from her the city took its name. Under 
the northern side of the towering rock and around to 
the east of it runs the thriving city of to-day, thence 
spreading off for perhaps two miles to the northward 
along the plain, first closely congested, then widening 
into more open modernized streets, and finally dwin- 
dling into scattered suburbs out in the countryside. 

The growth of Athens has left its marks of pro- 
gress in well-defined strata. The narrow, squalid, 
slummy streets of the quarter nearest the Acropolis 
belong to the older or Turkish period of the city's 
renascent life. Beyond these one meets newer and 
broader highways, lined in many cases with neat mod- 
ern shops, called into life by the city's remarkable 



52 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

growth of the past two decades, which have raised 
Athens from the rank of a dirty village to a clean and 
attractive metropolis — in the better sense of that 
much abused word. Still farther away are seen the 
natural products of the overflow of a thriving modern 
town — suburbs clustering around isolated mills or 
wine-presses. The present population is not far from 
a hundred thousand persons, so that Athens to-day 
is not an inconsiderable place. The population is 
chiefly the native Greek, modified no doubt by long 
submission to Turkish rule and mingled with a good 
deal of Turkish blood, but still preserving the lan- 
guage, names, and traditions that bespeak a glorious 
past. Despite the persistence of such names as Aris- 
teides, Miltiades, Themistocles, Socrates, and the like 
among the modern Athenians, it would no doubt 
be rashly unreasonable to expect to find in a popu- 
lation that was to all intents and purposes so long 
enslaved by Turkey very much that savors of the 
traditional Greek character as it stood in the days of 
Pericles. But there have not been wanting eminent 
scholars, who have insisted that our exalted ideas 
of the ancient Greeks are really derived from a com- 
paratively few exceptional and shining examples, 
and that the ancient population may have resembled 
the present citizens more than we are prone to think, 
in traits and general ability. 



ATHENS ; THE MODERN CITY 53 

On his native heath the modern Greek openly 
charges his own race with a lack of industry and love 
of idling too much in the coffee-houses, although it 
is an indictment which has never struck me as just, 
and one which, if coming from a foreigner, would 
doubtless be resented. It is true that the coffee- 
houses are seldom deserted, and the possession of an 
extra drachma or two is generally enough to tempt 
one to abandon his employ for the seclusion that the 
kaffeneion grants, there to sip slowly until the cups 
of syrupy coffee which the money will buy are gone. 
Nevertheless, one should be slow to say that the race 
is indolent by nature, especially in view of its cli- 
matic surroundings ; for there are too many thousand 
thrifty and hard-working Hellenes in Greece and in 
America as well to refute any such accusation. The 
one vast trouble, no doubt, is the lack of any spur to 
industrial ambition at home, or of any very attractive 
or remunerative employment compared with the op- 
portunities offered by the cities of the newer world. 
The strong set of the tide of emigration to American 
shores has tended largely to depopulate Greece ; but 
it is not unlikely that the return of the natives, which 
is by no means uncommon, will in time work large 
benefit to Hellas herself, and the attraction of her sons 
to foreign lands thus prove a blessing rather than, as 
was once supposed, a curse. 



54 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

This, however, is rather aside from any consideration 
of the modern city of Athens. Let it be said at the 
outset that one may go freely anywhere in the city 
and be quite unmolested either by malicious or men- 
dicant persons. It is not improbable, of course, that 
the increasing inundation of Athens by foreign visit- 
ors will tend somewhat to increase the tendency to 
begging, as it has elsewhere ; but it is due the Greek 
race to say that it is infinitely less lazy and infinitely 
less inclined to proletarianism, or to seeking to live 
without work, than the Italian. Small children, as in 
all countries, will be found occasionally begging a 
penny, especially if they have gone out of their way 
to render a fancied service, by ostentatiously opening 
a gate that already stood ajar. But there are few of 
the lame, halt, and blind, such as infest Naples and 
many smaller Mediterranean cities, seeking to extort 
money from sheer pity of unsightliness. Here and 
there in Athens one may indeed see a cripple patiently 
awaiting alms, but generally in a quiet and unobtru- 
sive way. Neither is the visitor bothered by the impor- 
tunities of carriage drivers, although the carriages 
are numerous enough and anxious for fares — a con- 
trast that is welcome indeed to one newly come from 
Italy and fresh from the tireless pursuit of warring 
Neapolitan cabbies. The offset to this welcome peace 
is the fact that carriage fares in Athens are undoubt- 



ATHENS ; THE MODERN CITY 55 

edly high compared with the astonishingly low charges 
produced in Naples by active and incessant com- 
petition of the vetturini. The sole dangers of Athe- 
nian streets are those incident to the fast driving of 
carriages over the unpaved roadways ; for the pedes- 
trian has his own way to make and his own safety to 
gxiard, as is largely true in Paris, and it is incumbent 
on him to stop, look, and listen before venturing into 
the highway. 

The street venders of laces, sponges, flowers, and 
postal cards are perhaps the nearest to an importunate 
class, though they generally await invitation to the 
attack, and their efforts are invariably good-humored. 
The region of the ''Syntagma" square is generally 
full of them, lining the curb and laden with their 
wares. Men will be seen with long strips of fascinating 
island lace over their shoulders, baskets on baskets 
of flowers, heaps of curiously shaped, marvelously 
attractive sponges, fresh and white from the near-by 
ocean, or packets of well-executed postal cards pictur- 
ing the city's classic remains, all offered for sale to 
whomsoever will exhibit the faintest trace of interest. 
Needless to say, the initial prices asked are inevi- 
tably excessive and yield to treatment with surprising 
revelations of latitude. 

Athens is a clean city. Its streets, while unpaved, 
are still fairly hard. Its buildings are in the main of 



56 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

stone, covered with a stucco finish and given a white 
color, or a tint of buff or light blue. The prevailing 
tone is white, and in the glare of the brilliant sun it is 
often rather trying to the eyes. To relieve the white- 
ness there is always the feathery green of the pepper 
trees, and the contrast of the clambering vines and 
flowers that in their season go far to make the city so 
attractive. Most notable of all the contrasts in color is 
unquestionably the rich purple of the bougainvillea 
blooms splashed in great masses against the immacu- 
late walls and porticoes of the more pretentious 
houses. The gardens are numerous and run riot with 
roses, iris, and hundreds of other fragrant and lovely 
blossoms. The sidewalks are broad and smooth. It is 
an easy town in which to stroll about, for the distances 
are not great and the street scenes are interesting 
and frequently unusual to a high degree, while vistas 
are constantly opening to give momentary views of 
the towering Acropolis. It is not a hilly city, but rather 
built on rolling ground, the prevailing slope of which 
is toward the west, gently down from the pointed Lyca- 
bettus to the ancient course of the Cephissus, along 
which once spread the famous grove of Academe. 
The lack of a sufficient water supply is unfortunate, 
for one misses the gushing of fountains which makes 
Rome so delightful, and the restricted volume avail- 
able for domestic uses is sometimes far from pleasant. 



ATHENS; THE MODERN CITY 57 

The Athenians had a prodigious mine to draw 
upon for the naming of their streets, in the magnifi- 
cent stretch of their history and in the fabulous wealth 
of mythology. And it is a fact worth remarking that 
the mythological gods and heroes appear to have 
decidedly the better of the famous mortals in the 
selection of street names to do them honor. For ex- 
ample, Pericles, the greatest Athenian in many ways, 
is recalled by the name of a decidedly poor thorough- 
fare — hardly more than an alley ; while Pheidias, 
Pindar, Homer, Solon, and a score of others fare but 
little better. On the contrary, the great gods of high 
Olympus, Hermes, Athena, ^olus, and others, give 
their names to the finest, broadest, most magnificent 
streets of this city that likes to call herself a little 
Paris. The result of it all is a curious mental state, 
for by the time one gets out of Athens and into the 
highlands of Delphi or of the Peloponnesus, where 
every peak and vale is the scene of sortie godlike 
encounter or amour, one is more than half ready to 
accept those ancient deities as actually having lived 
and done the things that legend ascribes to them. 
They become fully as real to the mind as William 
Tell or Pocahontas. The same illusion is helped on 
by the classic names afiected for the engines of the 
Piraeus-Athens-Peloponnesus Railroad, and by the 
time one has ridden for a day behind the " Hermes " 



58 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

or the ** Hephaistos," one is quite ready to expect to 
see Proteus rising from the sea, or hear old Triton 
blow his wreathed horn. 

It is at first a trifle perplexing to one not versed in 
the Greek language to find the streets all labeled in 
the genitive case, such as 6Sos 'Epfj.ov (othos Ermoia), 
" street of Hermes." This soon becomes a matter of 
course, however. The main shopping district is con- 
fined to the greater highways of Hermes, ^olus, and 
Athena, and to Stadium Street — the latter so called 
because its length is about one kilometre, which is 
the modern "stadion," instead of the lesser classic 
length of approximately six hundred feet. The name 
therefore has no reference to the magnificent athletic 
field of the city, in which the so-called modern 
"Olympic" games are occasionally held, and which 
in itself is a fine sight to see, as it lies in its natural 
amphitheatre east of the city, and brilliant in its 
newly built surfaces of purest marble. Stadium 
Street is perhaps the most modern and up-to-date 
street in Athens, lined with handsome stores, hotels, 
and cafes, thronged day and night, and perhaps even 
more gay and Parisian-looking by night, with its 
many lights and teeming life. 

Athens at this writing has no system of trolley 
cars, but sticks obstinately to an old-fashioned and 
quite inadequate horse-railway, the several lines ra- 



ATHENS; THE MODERN CITY 59 

dialing from the Omonoia Square — pronounced much 
Hke " Ammonia " — which, being interpreted, means 
the same as Place de la Concorde. To master the 
intricacies of this tramway system requires a consid- 
erable acquaintance with Athens, but it is vastly less 
involved a problem than the omnibuses of London 
and Paris, and naturally so because of the smaller 
size of the town. Odd little carriages plying between 
stated points eke out the local transportation ser- 
vice, while the third-rail, semi-underground line to 
the Piraeus and the antiquated steam tram to New 
Phalerum give a suburban service that is not to be 
despised. In a very few years no doubt the trolley 
will invade Athens, for it already has a foothold in 
Greece at the thriving port of Patras ; and when it 
does, one may whirl incongruously about the classic 
regions of the Acropolis as one now whirls about the 
Forum at Rome. 

The admirable Baedeker warns visitors to Hellas 
against assuming too hastily that Greece is a tropical 
land, merely because it is a southern Mediterranean 
country, and our own experiences have proved that 
even in April Athens can be as cold as in mid- winter, 
with snow capping Hymettus itself. But for the 
greater part of the year Athens is warm, and as in 
most southern cities business is practically at a stand- 
still between the noon hour and two o'clock in the 



6o GREECE AND THE AEGEAN ISLANDS 

afternoon. In the summer months, which in Athens 
means the interval between May and late fall, this 
cessation is a practical necessity, owing to the heat 
and the glare of the noontide sun on the white streets 
and buildings. But the comparative compactness of 
the city makes it entirely possible to walk almost 
anywhere, even on a warm day, for the coolness of 
shade as compared with the heat of the sun is always 
noticeable. Thus the visitor who has plenty of time 
for his stay in the city is practically independent of 
cars and carriages. For those who find time pressing 
and who must cover the sites, or, as Baedeker some- 
times says, " overtake " the points of interest in short 
order, the ingenious device once employed by a 
friend similarly situated may not come amiss. Hav- 
ing limited facilities of speech in the native tongue, 
and being practically without other means of com- 
munication with the cabman, this resourceful traveler 
supplied himself with a full set of picture post-cards 
dealing with the more celebrated features of Athens, 
and by dint of showing these one after another to 
his Jehu, he managed to "do" Athens in half a day — 
if one could call it that. He was not the only one 
to see the ancient capital in such short order, but it 
remains true that any such cavalier disposition of so 
famous a place is unfortunate and wholly inadequate. 
Athens is no place for the hasty " tripper," for not 




X 
< 

W 

H 

Pi 

D 



ATHENS ; THE MODERN CITY 6i 

only are the ancient monuments worthy of long and 
thoughtful contemplation, but the modern city itself 
is abundantly worthy of intimate acquaintance. 

It has been spoken of as a noisy city, and it is 
especially so after nightfall, when the streets are 
thronged with people until a late hour and the coffee- 
houses and open-air restaurants are in full swing. 
Long after the ordinary person has gone to bed, 
passing Athenians will be heard shouting or singing 
in merry bands of from three to a dozen, especially if 
it be election time. The Athenian takes his politics 
as he takes his coffee — in deliberate sips, making a 
little go a long way. The general election period 
usually extends over something like two weeks, dur- 
ing which time the blank walls of the city blossom 
with the portraits of candidates and the night is made 
vocal with the rallying cries of the free-born. " Ral- 
lying " carriages are employed much as our own 
practical politicians employ them, to convey the de- 
crepit or the reluctant able-bodied voters to the polls, 
with the difference that the Athenian rallying con- 
veyance is generally decorated with partisan banners 
and not infrequently bears on its box, beside the 
driver, a musical outfit consisting of a drum and 
penny whistle, with which imposing panoply the 
proud voter progresses grandly through the streets 
to the ballot box, attended by a shouting throng. 



62 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Torchlight processions, which make up in noise for 
their lack of numbers, are common every night dur- 
ing the election. The Athenian, when he does make 
up his mind to shout for any aspirant, shouts with his 
whole being, and with a vigor that recalls the days of 
Stentor. Noisy enough at all times, Athens is more 
so than ever in days of political excitement or on 
high festivals — notably on the night before Easter, 
when the joy over the resurrection of the Lord is 
manifested in a whole-hearted outpouring of the 
spirit, finding vent in explosives, rockets, and other 
pyrotechnics. Religious anniversaries, such as the 
birthday of a saint, or the Nativity, or the final tri- 
umph of Jesus, are treated by the Greek with the 
same pomp and circumstance that we accord to the 
Fourth of July ; and, indeed, the same is true of all 
Mediterranean countries. I have never experienced a 
night before Easter in Athens, but I have been told 
that this, one of the most sacred of the festivals of the 
Orthodox Church, is the one occasion when it is at all 
dangerous or disagreeable to be abroad in the streets 
of the capital, and it is so only because of the exu- 
berant and genuine joy that the native feels in the 
thought of his salvation, the idea of which seems an- 
nually to be a perfectly new and hitherto unexpected 
one. 

By day the chief tumult is from the ordinary press 



ATHENS ; THE MODERN CITY 63 

of traffic, with the unintelHgible street-cries of itin- 
erant peddlers offering fish, eggs, and divers vege- 
tables, not to mention fire-wood. Nor should one omit 
the newsboys, for the Athenian has abandoned not a 
whit of his traditional eagerness to see or to hear 
some new thing, and has settled upon the daily paper 
as the best vehicle for purveying to that taste. Athens 
boasts perhaps half a dozen journals, fairly good 
though somewhat given to exaggeration, and it is a 
poor citizen indeed who does not read two or three 
of them as he drinks his coffee. Early morn and late 
evening are filled with the cries of the paper boys 
ringing clear and distinct over the general hubbub, 
and of all the street sounds their calls are by far the 
easiest to understand. 

Most fascinating of all to the foreign visitor must 
always be the narrower and less ornate streets of the 
old quarter, leading off Hermes and -^olus streets, 
and paramount in attractiveness the little narrow 
lane of the red shoes, which is a perfect bazaar. It is 
a mere alley, lined from end to end with small open 
booths, or shops, and devoted almost exclusively to 
the sale of shoes, mostly of red leather and provided 
with red pompons, though soft, white leather boots 
are also to be had, and to the dealing in embroidered 
bags, coats, pouches, belts, and the like. The stock in 
trade of each is very similar to that of every neighbor, 



64 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

and the effect of the tout ensemble is highly curious 
and striking. To venture there once is to insure fre- 
quent visits, and one is absolutely certain sooner or 
later to buy. The wares seem rather Turkish than 
Greek in character. Of course, patience and tact are 
needful to enable one to avoid outrageous extortion. 
Nothing would surprise a shoe-lane dealer more, in 
all probability, than to find a foreigner willing and 
ready to accept his initial price as final. Chaffering is 
the order of the day, and after a sufficient amount of 
advancing and retreating, the intending purchaser is 
sure to succumb and return laden with souvenirs, 
from the inexpensive little embroidered bags to the 
coats heavy with gold lace, which are the festal gear 
of the peasant girls. The latter garments are mostly 
second-hand, and generally show the blemishes due 
to actual use. They are sleeveless over-garments 
made of heavy felt but gay with red and green cloth, 
on which, as a border, gold braid and tracery have 
been lavished without stint until they are splendid 
to see. Needless to say, they are the most expen- 
sive things in shoe lane. The process of bargaining 
between one who speaks no English and one who 
speaks no Greek is naturally largely a matter of 
dumb show, although the ever-ready pad and pencil 
figure in it. Madame looks inquiringly up from a 
handsome Greek coat, and is told by the pad that the 



ATHENS; THE MODERN CITY 65 

price is 50 drachmas. Her face falls ; she says as 
plainly as words could say it that she is very sorry, 
but it is out of the question. She turns and approaches 
the door. V Madame 1 madame ! " She turns back, 
and the pad, bearing the legend 45, is shoved toward 
her. Again the retreat, and once more the summons 
to return and see a new and still lower price. Event- 
ually the blank paper is passed to " madame," and 
she writes thereon a price of her own — inevitably too 
low. Finally, however, the product of the extremes 
produces the Aristotelian golden mean, and the title 
passes. Indeed, it sometimes happens that the mer- 
chant will inform you of an outrageous price and 
add with shameless haste, " What will you give ? " 
Experience will soon teach the purchaser that the 
easiest way to secure reasonable prices is to make a 
lump sum for several articles at a single sale. 

Shoe lane, for all its narrowness and business, is far 
from squalid, and is remarkably clean and sweet. In 
this it differs from the market district farther along, 
where vegetables, lambs, pigs, chickens, and other 
viands are offered for sale. The sight is interesting, 
but its olfactory appeal is stronger than the ocular. 
One need not venture there, however, to see the 
wayside cook at his work of roasting a whole sheep 
on the curb. Even the business streets up-town often 
show this spectacle. The stove is a mere sheet-iron 



66 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

chest without a cover, and containing a slow fire of 
charcoal. Over this on an iron spit, which is thrust 
through the lamb from end to end, the roast is 
slowly turning, legs, ribs, head, eyes, and all, the 
motive power being a little boy. From this primitive 
establishment cooked meat may be bought, as in the 
days of Socrates, either to be taken home, or to be 
eaten in some corner by the Athenian quick-lunch 
devotee. Farther along in the old quarter, not far 
from the Monastiri Station of the Piraeus Line, is the 
street of the coppersmiths, heralded from afar by 
the noise of its hammers. By all the rules of appro- 
priateness this should be the street of Hephaistos. In 
the gathering dusk, especially, this is an interesting 
place to wander through, for the forge fires in the 
dark little shops gleam brightly in the increasing 
darkness, while the busy hammers ply far into the 
evening. It is the tinkers' chorus and the armorer's 
song rolled into one. Here one buys the coffee-mills 
and the coffee-pots used in concocting the Turkish 
coffee peculiar to the East, and any visitor who learns 
to like cofEee thus made will do well to secure both 
utensils, since the process is simple and the drink can 
easily be made at home. The coffee-pots themselves 
are little brass or copper dippers, of varying sizes ; 
and the mills are cylinders of brass with arrangements 
for pulverizing the coffee beans to a fine powder. 



ATHENS; THE MODERN CITY 6y 

This powder, in the proportion of about a teaspoonful 
to a cup, is put into the dipper with an equal quantity 
of sugar. Boiling water is added, and the mixture set 
on the fire until it '* boils up." This is repeated three 
times before pouring off into cups, the coffee being 
vigorously stirred or beaten to a froth between the 
several boilings. At the end it is a thick and syrup- 
like liquid, astonishingly devoid of the insomnia- 
producing qualities commonly attributed to coffee by 
the makers of American " substitutes." In any event 
the long-handled copper pots and the mills for grind- 
ing are quaint and interesting to possess. At the 
coffee-houses the practice is generally to bring the 
coffee on in its little individual pot, to be poured out 
by the patron himself. It is always accompanied by 
a huge glass of rather dubious drinking water and 
often by a bit of loukoumi, which the Greek esteems 
as furnishing a thirst, or by a handful of salty pis- 
tachio nuts, equally efficacious for the same purpose. 
The consumption of coffee by the Greek nation is 
stupendous. Possibly it is harmful, too. But in any 
event it cheers without inebriating, and a drunken 
Greek is a rare sight indeed. 

Walking homeward in the dusk of evening after a 
sunset on the Acropolis, one is sure to pass many out- 
of-door stoves set close to the entrances of humbler 
houses and stuffed with light wood which is blazing 



68 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

cheerily in preparation of the evening meal, the glow 
and the aromatic wood-smoke adding to the charm 
of the scene. Small shops, in the windows of which 
stand fresh-made bowls of giaourti (ya-o6r-ti), are also 
to be seen, calling attention to that favorite Athenian 
delicacy, very popular as a dessert and not unlikely 
to please the palate of those not to the manner born. 
The giaourti is a sort of " junket," or thick curd of 
goat's milk, possessing a sour or acid taste. It is best 
eaten with an equal quantity of sugar, which ren- 
ders the taste far from disagreeable. As for the other 
common foods of the natives, doubtless the lamb 
comes nearest to being the chief national dish, while 
chickens and eggs are every-day features of many a 
table. Unless one is far from the congested haunts 
of men, the food problem is not a serious one. That 
a visitor would find it rather hard to live long on the 
ordinary native cookery, however, is no doubt true ; 
but fortunately there is little need to make the experi- 
ment. One other native dish deserves mention, in 
passing, and that is the " pilafifi," or "pilaff," which 
is rice covered with a rich meat gravy, and which 
almost any foreigner will appreciate as a palatable 
article of food. 

Of the ruins and museums of Athens, it is necessary 
to speak in detail in another chapter. Of the modern 
city and its many oddities, it is enough to deal here. 



ATHENS; THE MODERN CITY 69 

Rambles through the town in any direction are sure to 
prove delightful, not only in the older quarter which 
we have been considering, but through the more pre- 
tentious modern streets as well, with their excellent 
shops, their pseudo-classic architecture, and their 
constant glimpses of gardens or of distant ruined 
temples. Occasionally the classic style of building rises 
to something really fine, as in the case of the univer- 
sity buildings, the polytechnic school, or the national 
museum itself. The local churches are by no means 
beautiful, however. Indeed the ordinary Greek church 
makes no pretension to outward attractiveness, such 
as the cathedrals and minor churches of the Roman 
faith possess. Perhaps the most striking of the 
Athenian houses of worship is the little brown struc- 
ture which has been allowed to remain in the midst 
of Hermes Street, recalling the situation of St. Clement 
Danes, or St. Mary le Strand in London. It is a squat 
Byzantine edifice, not beautiful, but evidently old, 
and a familiar sight of the city. Within, the Greek 
churches are quite different in arrangement from the 
Roman. At the entrance to the altar space there is 
always a high screen, pierced by a door leading to 
the altar itself, and used only by the officiating priest. 
The altar screen, or ** iconastasis," is richly adorned 
as a rule with embossed work, and the " icons," or 
holy pictures, are generally painted faces set in raised 



70 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

silver-gilt frames, which supply the figure and robes 
of the saints, only the facial features being in pigment. 
Images are not allowed in the Orthodox worship, but 
the relief employed to embellish the faces in the icons 
goes far to simulate imagery. 

The residential architecture of the city finds its 
best exemplification in the splendid marble mansions 
of the princes of the royal house, which are really 
fine, and which are surrounded by attractive grounds 
and gardens. The palace of the king is far less at- 
tractive, being a huge and barn-like structure in the 
centre of the city, relieved from utter barrenness only 
by a very good classic portico. But nothing could 
be lovelier than the deep dells of the palace gar- 
dens, which form a magnificent park well deserving 
the classic name of a TrapaSeio-os, with its jungle of 
flowers, shrubs, and magnificent trees — the latter a 
welcome sight in treeless Attica. 

One cannot pass from the subject of modern Athens 
without mentioning the soldiery, for the soldiers are 
everywhere, in all degrees of rank and magnificence 
of dress, from the humble private to the glittering 
and altogether gorgeous generalissimo. The uni- 
forms are of a variety that would put to blush the 
variegated equipment of the famous Ancient and 
Honorable Artillery Company of Boston. These 
manifold uniforms have their proper signification, 



ATHENS; THE MODERN CITY 71 

however, and they are undeniably handsome. If the 
Greek soldiers could only fight as well as they look, 
what could restrain the modern Athenian empire ? 
The army clothes are admirably designed with an eye 
to fit and color, and the men carry themselves with 
admirable military hauteur. Most picturesque of all 
are the king's body-guard, with their magnificent 
physique and national dress. They are big, erect fel- 
lows, clad in the short fustanella skirts of the ancient 
regime, the tight-fitting leggings, the pomponed 
shoes, the dark over-jacket, and the fez. These are the 
only troops that wear the old-time garb of the Greek. 
But the dress is a familiar sight in the outside country 
districts, often worn by well-to-do peasants, and still 
regarded as the national dress despite the general 
prevalence of ordinary European clothes. 

It remains to speak briefly of the national money, 
for that is a subject the visitor cannot avoid. The 
drachma, which corresponds to the franc, is a peculiar 
thing. If one means the metal drachma, of silver, it 
is simple enough. It circulates at par with the franc. 
But the paper drachma varies in value from day to 
day at the behest of private speculation, and is almost 
never at par. I have experienced variations of it from 
a value of fourteen cents to eighteen. In small trans- 
actions, when the paper drachma is high, the differ- 
ence is negligible. When it is low in value, or in 



72 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

large amounts, it is highly appreciable. The fluctua- 
tion of this money is the reason for the pads and 
pencils in the shops, for it is only by constant multi- 
plication or division that the merchant is able to 
translate prices from francs into drachmas or vice 
versa, as occasion requires. Naturally when the 
drachma is worth only fourteen cents, the unsuspect- 
ing visitor is liable to pay more than he should, if 
assuming that a franc and a drachma are synony- 
mous terms. In such a case a paper bill requires a 
considerable addition of copper lepta to make it 
equal the metal drachma or the French franc. The 
diiTerence in value from day to day may be learned 
from the newspapers. Most bargains are made in 
francs, and the French money, both gold and silver, 
is freely used. Nevertheless, the local paper money is 
very useful, and it merely requires a little care in the 
use. Particularly is it desirable to know the status of 
the drachma in securing cash on a letter of credit or 
on a traveler's cheque, in order that one may obtain 
the proper amount and not content himself with an 
inferior sum in paper; for although the principal 
banks may be relied upon as a rule to be honest, 
individual clerks may not be proof against the temp- 
tation to impose upon the ignorant and pocket the 
difference. I would advise the use of the Ionian Bank 
as far as possible, rather than the tourist agencies, for 



ATHENS; THE MODERN CITY 73 

the latter often extort money quite without warrant, 
on the plea of needful stamps or fees for " accommo- 
dation," that the bank does not require. Little trouble 
will be found to exist in the way of false coin — far 
less than in Italy. The one difficulty is to follow the 
paper drachma up and down, and not be mulcted to 
a greater or less extent in the exchange of silver for 
paper. The copper coins, which are either the five or 
ten lepta pieces, occasion no trouble, being like the 
Italian centesimi or English pence and ha' pennies. 

One not uncommon sight to be met with in Athe- 
nian streets is the funeral procession — a sight which 
is liable at first to give the unaccustomed witness 
a serious shock, because of the custom of carrying the 
dead uncoffined through the city. The coffin and its 
cover are borne at the head of the procession, as 
a rule, while the body of the deceased, in an open 
hearse, rides jokingly along in the middle of the cor- 
tege. To those not used to this method of honoring 
the dead, the exposure of the face to the sight of 
every passer-by must seem incongruous and revolt- 
ing. But it is the custom of the place, and the passing 
of a funeral causes no apparent concern to those who 
calmly view the passing corpse from the chairs where 
they sip their coffee, or idly finger their strings of 
beads. The beads which are to be seen in the hand 
of nearly every native have no religious significance, 



74 GREECE AND THE .EGEAN ISLANDS 

as might be thought at first sight, but are simply one 
of the innocuous things that the Hellene finds for idle 
hands to do. They are large beads, of various colors, 
though the strings are generally uniform in them- 
selves, and their sole function is to furnish something 
to toy with while talking, or while doing nothing in 
particular. There is a sufficiency of loose string to 
give some play to the beads, and they become a 
familiar sight. 

Royalty in Greece is decidedly democratic in its 
attitude. King George and his sons are frequently 
to be seen riding about town, much like ordinary 
citizens. Quite characteristic was an encounter of re- 
cent date, in which an American gentleman accosted 
one whom he found walking in the palace gardens 
with the inquiry as to what hour would be the best 
for seeing the royal children. The question elicited 
mutual interest and the two conversed for some time, 
the American asking with much curiosity for particu- 
lars of the household, with which his interlocutor 
professed to be acquainted. '* What of the queen ? " 
he inquired. *' She 's exceedingly well beloved," was 
the reply. " She is a woman of high character and 
fills her high station admirably." "And the king?" 
" Oh, the king ! I regret to say that he is no good. 
He has done nothing for the country. He tries to 
give no offense — but as a king the less said of him 



ATHENS ; THE MODERN CITY 75 

the better I " Needless to say, this oracle was the 
king himself. Nobody else would have passed so 
harsh a judgment. King George I has been reigning 
since 1863, when the present government, with the 
sponsorship of the Christian powers, was inaugurated. 
He came from Denmark, being a son of the late King 
Christian, who furnished so many thrones of Europe 
with acceptable rulers and queens from his numerous 
and excellent family, so that the king is not himself a 
Greek at all. The years of successful rule have proved 
him highly acceptable to the Athenians and their 
countrymen, who have seen their land regain a large 
measure of its prosperity and their chief city grow to 
considerable proportions under the new order. The 
kingly ofBce is hereditary, the crown prince reaching 
his majority at eighteen years. 

Prince Constantine, the heir to the throne, lives on 
the street behind the palace gardens, and has a fam- 
ily of handsome children. Prince George is com- 
missioner in charge of Crete. The royal family has 
embraced the faith of the Greek Orthodox Church. 



CHAPTER V. ANCIENT ATHENS: 
THE ACROPOLIS 



THE visible remains of the ancient city of Athens, 
as distinguished from the city of to-day, lie 
mainly to the south and west of the Acropolis, where 
are to be seen many distinct traces of the classic 
town, close around the base of the great rock and the 
Hill of Mars. How far the ancient city had extended 
around to the eastward can only be conjectured by 
the layman, for there exist almost no remains in that 
direction save the choragic monument of Lysicrates 
and the ruins of the temple of Olympian Zeus ; while 
on the northern side of the Acropolis, although it is 
known that there once lay the agora, or market place, 
little is left but some porticoes of a late, if not of 
Roman, date. Not being bent on exact archaeology, 
however, it is not for us here to speculate much over 
the probable sites of the ancient metes and bounds, 
the location of the fountain of nine spouts called 
" Enneacrunus," nor the famous spring of Callirrhoe, 



ANCIENT ATHENS : THE ACROPOLIS 77 

which furnish fertile ground for dissent among those 
skilled in the art. What must now concern us most 
is the mass of visible ruins, which provide the chief 
charm of the city to every visitor, and most of all to 
those possessed of the desirable historic or classical 
"background" to make the ruins the more inter- 
esting. 

Despite her many inglorious vicissitudes, Athens 
has been so fortunate as to retain many of her ancient 
structures in such shape that even to-day a very good 
idea is to be had of their magnificence in the golden 
age of Hellenic empire. The Greek habit of building 
temples and fanes in high places, apart from the 
dwellings of men, has contributed very naturally to 
the preservation of much that might otherwise have 
been lost. The chief attractions of the classic city 
were set on high, and the degenerate modern town 
that succeeded the ancient capital did not entirely 
swallow them up, as was so largely the case at Rome. 
To be sure, the Turks did invade the sacred precincts 
of the Acropolis with their mosques and their muni- 
tions of war, and the latter ruined the Parthenon 
beyond hope of restoration when Morosini's lament- 
able advisers caused the Venetian bomb to be fired 
at that noble edifice. Local vandalism and the greed 
of lime burners have doubtless destroyed much. But 
the whole course of these depredations has failed to 



78 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

remove the crowning treasures of Athens, and the 
Acropolis temples are still the inspiration and the 
despair of architects. In passing, then, to a more de- 
tailed and perhaps superfluous consideration of the 
monuments surviving from the ancient city, it may- 
be remarked that the visitor will find more of the 
classic remains to reward and delight him than is 
the case at Rome, rich as that eternal city is. 

The Acropolis is naturally the great focus of inter- 
est, not only for what remains in situ on its top, but 
because of many remnants of buildings that cluster 
about its base. The rock itself, if it were stripped of 
every building and devoid of every memory, would 
still be commanding and imposing, alone by sheer 
force of its height and steepness. As it is, with its 
beetling sides made the more precipitous by the arti- 
fices of Cimon and ancient engineers, whose walls 
reveal the use of marble column drums built into the 
fortifications themselves, it is doubly impressive for 
mere inaccessibility. Something like a hundred feet 
below its top it ceases to be so sheer, and spreads out 
into a more gradual slope, on the southern expanses 
of which were built the city's theatres and a precinct 
sacred to Asklepios. Only on the west, however, 
was the crag at all approachable, and on that side 
to-day is the only practicable entrance to the sacred 
precincts. 



ANCIENT ATHENS : THE ACROPOLIS 79 

A more magnificent approach it would be hard to 
conceive. One must exempt from praise the so-called 
" Beule " gate at the very entrance, at the foot of the 
grand staircase, for it is a mere late patchwork of 
marble from other ancient monuments, and is in every- 
way unworthy of comparison with the majestic Pro- 
pylaea at the top. It takes its name from the French 
explorer who unearthed it. As for its claim to interest, 
it must found that, if at all, on the identification of the 
stones which now compose it with the more ancient 
monument of some choragic victor. Looking up the 
steep incline to the Propylsea, or fore gate of the 
Acropolis, the Parthenon is completely hid. Nothing 
is visible from this point but the walls and columns 
of the magnificent gateway itself, designed to be a 
worthy prelude to the architectural glory of the main 
temple of the goddess. The architect certainly suc- 
ceeded admirably in achieving the desired result. 
He did not at all dwarf or belittle his chief creation 
above, yet he gave it a most admirable setting. Even 
to-day, with so much of the colonnade of the Pro- 
pylaea in ruins, it is a splendid and satisfying ap- 
proach, not only when seen from a distance, but at 
close range. Not alone is it beautiful in and of itself, 
but it commands from its platform a grand view of 
the Attic plain below, of the bay of Salamis gleaming 
in the sun beyond, of the long cape running down to 



8o GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Sunium, and of the distant mountains of the ArgoHd, 
rolling like billows in the southwest far across the 
gulf and beyond ^Egina. To pause for a moment on 
gaining this threshold of the Acropolis and gaze upon 
this imposing panorama of plain, mountain, and sea, 
is an admirable introduction to Greece. 

On either side of the stairway by which one climbs 
to the Propylaea are buttresses of rock, on one of 
which stands an object worthy of long contemplation. 
At the right, on a platform leveled from the solid 
rock, stands the tiny temple of Nike Apteros (the 
Wingless Victory), "restored " it is true, but neverthe- 
less one of the most perfect little buildings imaginable. 
At one time entirely removed to make room for a 
Turkish watch-tower, it has been re-created by care- 
ful hands out of its original marbles ; and it stands 
to-day, as it stood of old, on its narrow parapet beside 
the grand stairway of Athena. The process of rebuild- 
ing has not, indeed, been able to give the unbroken 
lines of the old temple. The stones are chipped at 
the corners here and there, and there are places 
where entirely new blocks have been required. But 
in the main everything, even to the delicately carved 
frieze around its top, is in place ; and for once at least 
the oft-berated " restorer " of ancient buildings has 
triumphed and has silenced all his critics. The rem- 
nants of the incomparable carved balustrade, which 



ANCIENT ATHENS: THE ACROPOLIS 8i 

once served as a railing for the parapet, are to be 
seen in tlie small museum of the Acropolis, reveal- 
ing the extreme grace which the Greek sculptors had 
achieved in the modeling of exquisite figures in high 
relief. The slab, particularly, which has come to be 
known as " Nike binding her sandal " seems to be 
the favorite of all, though the others, even in their 
headless and armless state, are scarcely less lovely. 

As for the isolated pedestal on the other side of 
the stairway, known as the "pedestal of Agrippa," it 
is not only devoid of any statue to give it continued 
excuse for being, but it is in such a state of decrepi- 
tude as to cause the uncomfortable thought that it is 
about to fall, and seems an object rather for removal 
than for perpetuation, although it serves to balance 
the effect produced by the Nike bastion. 

Standing on the Nike platform, the visitor finds the 
noble columns of the Propylaea towering above him 
close at hand. These Doric pillars give one for the 
first time an adequate idea of the perfection to which 
the column was carried by Ictinus and the builders 
and architects of his time ; for although each pillar is 
built up drum upon drum, it is still true in many cases 
that the joints between them are almost invisible, so 
perfect are they, despite the lapse of ages and the 
ravages of war, not to mention the frequent earth- 
quake shocks to which the whole region has been 



82 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

subjected. Age has been kind also to the Pentelic 
marble, softening its original whiteness to a golden 
brown without destroying its exquisite satin texture. 
Nothing more charming can well be imagined than 
the contrast of the blue Athenian sky with these stately 
old columns, as one looks outward or inward through 
their majestic rows. 

The rock rises sharply as one passes within the pre- 
cinct of the Acropolis, and the surface of it appears 
to have been grooved to give a more secure footing 
to pedestrians. Stony as is the place, it still affords 
soil enough to support a growth of grasses and strug- 
gling bits of greenery to cradle the many fallen drums. 
But one has eyes only for the Parthenon, the western 
front of which now appears for the first time in its 
full effect. From its western end, the havoc wrought 
in its midst being concealed, the Parthenon appears 
almost perfect. The pedimental sculptures, it is true, 
are gone save for a fragment or two, having been 
carried off to England. But the massive Doric col- 
umns still stand in an unbroken double row before 
one ; the walls of the cella appear to be intact ; the 
pediment rises almost unbroken above; frieze, tri- 
glyphs, and metopes remain in sufficient degree to 
give an idea of the ancient magnificence of the shrine 
— and all conspire to compel instant and unstinted 
admiration. Speculation as to the ethics of the re- 



ANCIENT ATHENS : THE ACROPOLIS 83 

moval of the Parthenon sculptures by Lord Elgin 
has become an academic matter, and therefore one 
quite beyond our present purpose. Doubtless to-day 
no such removal would be countenanced for a mo- 
ment. It is no longer possible to say, as former critics 
have said, that the local regard for the treasures of 
the place is so slight as to endanger their safety. The 
present custodianship of the priceless relics of an- 
tiquity in Athens is admirably careful and satisfac- 
tory. If, therefore, Greece had only come into her 
own a century or so earlier than she did, the famous 
sculptures of the miraculous birth of Athena, spring- 
ing full grown from the head of Zeus, and the colossal 
representation of the strife between Athena and Posei- 
don for possession of the Attic land, might still adorn 
as of yore the eastern and western gables of the great 
temple ; or if not that, might still be seen in the very 
excellent museum at the other end of the city. It is 
enough for us to know, however, that they are not in 
Athens but in London, and that there is no proba- 
bility they will ever return to Greek soil ; and to know, 
also, that had they not been removed as they were, 
they might never have been preserved at all. That 
is the one comfortable state of mind in which to view 
the vacant pediments of the Parthenon. To work up 
a Byronic frenzy over what cannot be helped, and 
may, after all, be for the best, is of no benefit. 



84 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Writers on Athens have often called attention to 
the curved stylobate of the Parthenon — a feature 
which is by no means confined to this temple, but 
which is to be noticed in almost every considerable 
ruin of the sort. The base of the building curves suf- 
ficiently to make the device visible, rising from either 
end to the centre of the sides ; and the curious may 
easily prove it by placing a hat at one extremity and 
trying to see it from the other, sighting along the 
line of the basic stones. The curve was necessary to 
cure an optical defect, for a straight or level base 
would have produced the illusion of a decided sag- 
ging Similarly it has long been recognized that the 
columns must swell at the middle drums, lest they 
appear to the eye to be concaved. In fact, as Professor 
Gardner has pointed out, there is actually hardly a 
really straight line in the Parthenon — yet the effect 
is of absolute straightness everywhere. 

Obviously this curvature of the base, slight though 
it was, imposed some engineering problems of no in- 
considerable nature when it came to setting the col- 
umn drums ; for the columns must stand erect, and 
the bottom sections must be so devised as to meet 
the configuration of the convex stylobate. The cor- 
ner columns, being set on a base that curved in both 
directions, must have been more difficult still to deal 
with. But the problem was solved successfully, and 



ANCIENT ATHENS : THE ACROPOLIS 85 

the result of this cunningly contrived structure was a 
temple that comes as near architectural perfection as 
earthly artisans are ever likely to attain. The columns 
were set up in an unfluted state, the fluting being 
added after the pillar was complete. Each drum is said 
to have been rotated upon its lower fellow until the 
joint became so exact as to be to all intents and pur- 
poses indistinguishable. In the centre of the fallen 
drums will be seen always a square hole, used to 
contain a peg of wood designed to hold the finished 
sections immovable, and in many cases this wooden 
plug has been found intact. All along the sides of the 
Parthenon, lying on the ground as they fell, are to 
be seen the fallen drums that once composed the col- 
umns of the sides, but which were blown out of posi- 
tion by the bomb from the Venetian fleet of Admiral 
Morosini. They lie like fallen heaps of dominoes or 
children's building blocks, and the entire centre of 
the temple is a gaping void. Here and there an 
attempt has been made to reconstruct the fallen col- 
umns from the original portions, but the result is by 
no means reassuring and seems not to justify the 
further prosecution of the task. Better a ruined Par- 
thenon than an obvious patchwork. The few restored 
columns are quite devoid of that homogeneity that 
marks the extant originals, and their joints are pain- 
fully felt, being chipped and uneven, where the old 



86 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

are all but imperceptible ; so that the whole effect is 
of insecurity and lack of perfection entirely out of 
harmony with the Parthenon itself. Opinions, how- 
ever, differ. Some still do advocate the rebuilding of 
the temple rather than leave the drums, seemingly so 
perfect still, lying as they now are amid the grasses 
of the Acropolis. It is one of those questions of taste 
on which debate is traditionally idle and purposeless. 
For those who must demand restorations other than 
those constructed by the mind's eye, there are models 
and drawings enough extant, and some are to be seen 
in the Acropolis Museum. Most interesting of the 
attempts are doubtless the speculations as to the 
pedimental sculptures, the remains of which are in 
the British Museum, but which are so fragmentary 
and so ill placed in their new home that much of the 
original grouping is matter for conjecture. With the 
aid of drawings made by a visitor long years ago, 
before Lord Elgin had thought of tearing them down, 
the two great pediments have been ingeniously recon- 
structed in miniature, showing a multitude of figures 
attending on the birth of the city's tutelary goddess, 
as she sprang full armed from the head of Zeus as- 
sisted by the blow of Hephaistos's hammer, or the 
concourse of deities that umpired the contest between 
Athena and Poseidon for the land. The Acropolis 
Museum has only casts of the Elgin marbles, but 



ANCIENT ATHENS : THE ACROPOLIS 87 

there is still to be seen a good proportion of the origi- 
nal frieze. It would be out of place in any such work 
as this to be drawn into anything like a detailed ac- 
count of these famous sculptures, the subjects of a 
vast volume of available literature already and sources 
of a considerable volume also of controversial writ- 
ing involving conflicts of the highest authority. It 
must therefore suffice to refer the reader interested in 
the detailed story of the Parthenon, its external adorn- 
ment, its huge gold-and-ivory statue within, and the 
great Panathenaic festival which its frieze portrayed, 
to any one of those learned authors who have written 
of all these things so copiously and clearly — doubt- 
less none more so than Dr. Ernest Gardner in his 
admirably lucid and readable "Ancient Athens," or in 
his "Handbook of Greek Sculpture," without which 
no one should visit the museum in that city. 

One must remember that the Parthenon and the 
other features of the Acropolis are monuments of 
the age of Pericles, and not of an earlier day. The 
Persians who invaded Greece in 480 B. C. succeeded 
in obtaining possession of Athens and of the whole 
Attic plain, the inhabitants fleeing to the island of 
Salamis. The hordes of barbarians brought in by 
Xerxes were opposed by a very few of the citizens, 
some of whom erected a stockade around the Acro- 
polis, thinking that thereby they satisfied the oracle 



88 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

which had promised the city salvation through the 
impregnability of its "Wooden Walls." The Persians 
massed their forces on Mars Hill, just west of the 
larger rock, and a hot fight took place, the invaders 
attempting to fire the stockade by means of arrows 
carrying burning tow, while the besieged made use 
of round stones with considerable effect. Eventually 
the enemy discovered an unsuspected means of ac- 
cess to the citadel and took it by storm, after which 
they burned its temples and left it a sorry ruin. The 
rest of the Athenians with the allied navy at Salamis 
repulsed the Persian fleet, and Xerxes, disgusted, 
withdrew, — despite the fact that it would seem to 
have been quite possible for him to pursue his suc- 
cesses on land. It left Athens a waste, but on that 
waste grew up a city that for architectural beauty has 
never, in all probability, been surpassed. The reac- 
tion from the horrors of war gave us the Parthenon, 
the Propylsea, and the Erechtheum, all dating, per- 
haps, from the fifth century before Christ. 

The Erechtheum, while properly entitled to the 
epithet " elegant " as a building, seems decidedly less 
a favorite than the Parthenon. It is extremely beau- 
tiful, no doubt, in a delicate and elaborate way, and 
its ornamentation is certainly of a high order. Unlike 
the Parthenon, it is not surrounded by a colonnade, 
but possesses pillars only in its several porticoes. The 



ANCIENT ATHENS : THE ACROPOLIS 89 

columns are not Doric, but Ionic. As for its general 
plan, it is so complicated and devoted to so many- 
obscure purposes that the lay visitor doubtless will 
find it an extremely difficult place to understand. 
There appear to have been at least three precincts 
involved in it, and the name it bears is the ancient 
one, given it because in part it was a temple of 
Erechtheus. That deity was of the demi-god type. 
He was an ancient Attic hero, who had received apo- 
theosis and become highly esteemed, doubtless be- 
cause in part he had instituted the worship of Athena 
in the city and had devised the celebrated Panathenaic 
festival. Tradition says that he was brought up by 
Athena herself, and that she intrusted him as a babe, 
secreted in a chest, to the daughters of Cecrops to 
guard. They were enjoined not to open the chest, 
but being overcome with curiosity they disobeyed, 
and discovered the babe entwined with serpents — 
whereat, terrified beyond measure, they rushed to the 
steeper part of the Acropolis and threw themselves 
down from the rock. Therein they were not alone, for 
it is also related that the father of Theseus had also 
thrown himself down from this eminence in despair, 
because he beheld his son's ship returning from Crete 
with black sails, imagining therefrom that the Mino- 
taur had triumphed over his heroic son, when the 
reverse was the fact. 



90 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

The complicated character of the Erechtheum is 
further emphasized by the fact that a portion of it was 
supposed to shelter the gash made by Poseidon with 
his trident when he was contending with Athena for 
the land, as well as the olive tree that Athena caused 
to grow out of the rock. The two relics were natu- 
rally held in veneration, and it was the story that in 
the cleft made by the trident there was a salt spring, 
or " sea " as Herodotus calls it, which gave forth to 
the ear a murmuring like that of the ocean. The cleft 
is still there. The olive tree, unfortunately, has disap- 
peared. It was there when the Persian horde came to 
Athens, however, if we may believe Herodotus ; and 
tradition says that after the invaders had burned the 
Acropolis over, the tree-stump immediately put forth 
a shoot which was in length a cubit, as a sign that 
the deity had not abandoned the city. It had been 
the custom of the place to deposit a cake of honey 
at stated intervals in the temple door for the food of 
the sacred serpents ; and when, on the arrival of the 
Persians, this cake remained untouched, the inhab- 
itants were convinced that even the god had left the 
Acropolis and that naught remained but ruin. The re- 
newed and miraculous life of the olive tree dispelled 
this error. The Erechtheum in part overlaps the 
oldest precinct sacred to Athena, where stood an 
earlier temple supposed to have contained the sacred 



ANCIENT ATHENS : THE ACROPOLIS 91 

image of the goddess, made of wood, which came 
down from heaven. For exact and detailed descrip- 
tions of the Erechtheum and its uses, the reader must 
once again turn to the archaeologists. As for its ex- 
ternal features, the most famous of all is unques- 
tionably the caryatid portico, in which the roof is 
borne up by a row of graceful, but undeniably sturdy, 
marble maidens. The use of the caryatid, always un- 
natural, is here rather successful on the whole, for the 
beholder derives no sensation that the maidens are 
restive under the weight imposed on them. They are 
entirely free from any indictment of grotesqueness. 
Nevertheless, it is questionable whether the portico is 
altogether pleasing. One of the figures is, as is well 
known, a reproduction of the one Lord Elgin carried 
away to the British Museum, but the remainder of 
the six are the original members. 

The Acropolis Museum serves to house a great 
many interesting fragments found on the spot, in- 
cluding a host of archaic representations of Athena, 
still bearing ample traces of the paint which the 
Greeks used so lavishly on their marble statues. 
This use of pigment might seem to have been a 
very doubtful exhibition of taste, as judged by mod- 
ern standards, not only in its application to statues, 
but in the decoration of marble temples as well. It is 
hard for us to-day, accustomed to pure white marble 



92 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

sculpture, to imagine any added beauty from paint- 
ing the hair, eyes, and garments of a statue ; or to 
conceive how the polychromy so commonly made 
use of in bedecking such masterpieces as the Par- 
thenon could have been anything but a blemish. 
Nevertheless, the fact that the Greeks did it, and that 
they were in all else so consummately tasteful, makes 
it entirely probable that their finished statues and 
edifices thus adorned were perfectly congruous — 
especially under that brilliant sky and surrounded 
by so many brilliant costumes. From the surviving 
multitude of statues of Athena, it is evident that the 
Greeks conceived her as a woman of majestic mien, 
rather almond-eyed, and possessed of abundant braids 
of the ruddy hair later vouchsafed to Queen Eliza- 
beth. The more rudimentary figure of the " Typhon," 
also preserved in this museum, which was doubtless 
a pedimental sculpture from some earlier acropolitan 
temple, bears abundant traces of paint on its body 
and on the beards of its triple head. It is too gro- 
tesque to furnish much of an idea of the use of paint 
on such statues as the great masters later produced. 
The remnants of the Parthenon frieze give little or 
no trace of any of the blue background, such as was 
commonly laid on to bring out the figures carved 
on such ornaments, nor are there any traces remain- 
ing of polychrome decoration on the Parthenon itself. 



ANCIENT ATHENS: THE ACROPOLIS 93 

The Acropolis, of course, has not escaped the 
common fate of all similar celebrated places — that of 
being " done " now and then by parties of tourists in 
absurdly hasty fashion, that to the lover of the spot 
seems little less than sacrilege. It is no infrequent 
sight to see a body of men and women numbering 
from a dozen to over a hundred, in the keeping of 
a voluble courier, scampering up the steps of the 
Propylsea, over the summit, through the two temples, 
in and out of the museum, and down again, amply 
satisfied with having spent a half hour or even less 
among those immortal ruins, and prepared to tell 
about it for the rest of their days. It is a pity, as it 
always is, to see a wonder of the world so cavalierly 
treated. Still, one hesitates to say that rather than do 
this, one should never visit the Acropolis of Athens. 
It is better to have looked for a moment than never 
to have looked at all. The Acropolis is no place to 
hurry through. Rather is it a spot to visit again and 
again, chiefly toward sunset, not merely to wander 
through the ruins, or to rest on the steps of the Par- 
thenon musing over the remote past to which this 
place belongs, but also to see the sun sink to the 
west as Plato and Socrates must often have seen it 
sink from this very place, behind the rugged sky-line 
of the Argolid, which never changes, lengthening the 
purple shadows of the hills on the peaceful plain and 



94 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

touching the golden-brown of the temples with that 
afterglow which, once seen, can never be forgotten. 

The gates of the Acropolis are closed at sunset 
by the guards, and lingering visitors are insistently 
herded into groups and driven downward to the gate 
like sheep by the little band of blue-coated custo- 
dians. Still, they are not hard-hearted, and if a be- 
lated visitor finds the outer gates locked a trifle before 
sunset, as often happens with the idea of preventing 
needless ascent, a plea for "pende lepta" (five min- 
utes) is likely to be honored even without a petty 
bribe. But at last every one must go, and the holy 
hill of Athena is left untenanted for one more of its 
endless round of nights. A visit to the Acropolis by 
moonlight is traditionally worth while, and the need- 
ful permission is not difficult to obtain once the mu- 
nicipal office dealing with such things is located. The 
Parthenon on a clear, moonlit night must be inde- 
scribably lovely, even in its lamentable ruin. 

Other sights of Athens, ancient and modern, are 
interesting, and many are magnificent. But the Acro- 
polis is unquestionably the best that Athens has to 
show, and the Parthenon is incomparably the best 
of the Acropolis. It is the first and the last spot to 
seek in visiting Athena's famous city, and the last 
glimpse the departing voyager — very likely with a 
not unmanly tear — catches from his ship as it sails 



ANCIENT ATHENS : THE ACROPOLIS 95 

out into the blue JEgean is of this hoary temple 
reposing in calm and serene indifference to man- 
kind on its rocky height. It has seen the worship 
of Athena Parthenos give way to the reverence of 
another Virgin — a holier ideal of Wisdom set up in 
its own precincts, and worshiped there on the very 
spot where once the youth of Athens did honor to 
the pagan goddess. Gods and religions have risen 
and departed, despots have come and gone ; but the 
Parthenon has stood unchanging, the unrivaled em- 
bodiment of architectural beauty to-day, as it was 
when Ictinus, Mnesicles, Pheidias, and those who 
were with them created it out of their combined 
and colossal genius, under the wise ordainment of 
Pericles. 



CHAPTER VI. ANCIENT ATHENS; 
THE OTHER MONUMENTS 
XI 




THERE are two favorite ways whereby those 
leaving the AcropoHs are wont to descend to 
the modern city. One lies around to the right as you 
leave the gates, passing between the Acropolis and 
Mars Hill to the north side of the former, where 
steps will be found leading down to the old quarter and 
thence past Shoe Lane to Hermes Street and home. 
The other passes to the south of the Acropolis along 
its southerly slopes, finally emerging through an iron 
gate at the eastern end, whence a street leads directly 
homeward, rather cleaner and sweeter than the other 
route but hardly as picturesque. Since, however, this 
way leads to some of the other notable remains of 
classic Athens, for the present let us take it. 

Immediately on leaving the avenue in front of 
the gates of the Acropolis, one finds a path leading 
eastward directly behind and above the Odeon of 
Herodes Atticus, which is made conspicuous in the 



ANCIENT ATHENS 97 

landscape by the lofty stone arches remaining at its 
front. These arches are blackened and bear every 
ear-mark of the later Roman epoch. Moreover they 
strike the beholder as rather unstable, as if some day 
they might fall unless removed. But their loss would 
be a pity, nevertheless, for they certainly present a 
striking and agreeable feature to the sight despite 
their lack of harmony with the received ideas of pure 
Greek architecture. It hardly repays one to descend 
to the pit of this commodious theatre, or rather con- 
cert hall, since one gets a very accurate idea of it 
from above looking down into its orchestra over the 
tiers of grass-grown seats. For more detailed inspec- 
tion of ancient theatrical structures, the Dionysiac 
theatre farther along our path is decidedly more 
worth while, besides being much more ancient and 
more interesting by association. 

On the way thereto are passed several remnants of 
a long " stoa," or portico, called that of Eumenes, 
curiously intermingled with brick relics of the Turkish 
times, and the non-archaeological visitor will hardly 
care to concern himself long with either. But he will 
doubtless be interested to turn aside from the path 
and clamber up to the base of the steeper rock to 
inspect the damp and dripping cave where once 
was an important shrine of Asklepios, with the usual 
" sacred spring " still flowing, and still surrounded 



98 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

with remains of the customary porticoes, in which the 
faithful in need of heaHng once reposed themselves 
by night, awaiting the cure which the vision of the 
god might be hoped to bestow. The cave is now a 
Catholic shrine, with a picture of its particular saint 
and an oil lamp burning before it. It is dank and dis- 
mal, and for one to remain there long would doubt- 
less necessitate the services of Asklepios himself, or 
of some skillful modern disciple of his healing art — 
of which, by the way, Athens can boast not a few. 
The Greek seems to take naturally to the practice 
of medicine, and some of the physicians, even in 
remote country districts, are said to possess unusual 
talent. 

Not far below the shrine lies the theatre of Dio- 
nysus, scooped out of the hillside as are most Greek 
theatres, with a paved, semi-circular "orchestra," or 
dancing place, at its foot. Much of the original seat- 
ing capacity is concealed by the overgrowth of grass, 
so that one is likely greatly to underestimate its 
former size. Once the seats rose far up toward the 
precinct of Asklepios, and the path that to-day trav- 
erses the slope passes through what was once the 
upper portion of the amphitheatre. It is only in the 
lower portions that the stones still remain in a fair 
state of preservation and serve to show us the man- 
ner of theatre that the Athenians knew — the same in 



ANCIENT^ ATHENS 99 

which the earlier generations saw for the first time 
the tragedies of that famous trio of playwrights, 
^schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. This theatre 
has undergone manifold changes since its first con- 
struction, as one will discover from his archaeological 
books. It is idle for us here to seek to recall the suc- 
cessive alterations which changed the present theatre 
from that which the ancients actually saw, or to point 
out the traces of each transformation that now remain, 
to show that the "orchestra" was once a complete 
circle and lay much farther back. It will, however, 
be found interesting enough to clamber down over 
the tiers of seats to the bottom and inspect at leisure 
the carved chairs once allotted to various dignitaries, 
and bearing to this day the names of the officers who 
used them. Particularly fine is the chief seat of all, 
the carved chair of the high priest of Dionysus, in 
the very centre of the row, with its bas-relief of fight- 
ing cocks on the chair-arms still plainly to be seen. 
It is well to remember, however, that most of what 
the visitor sees is of a rather recent period as com- 
pared with other Athenian monuments, for it is stated 
that very little of the present visible theatre is of 
earlier date than the third century B. C, while much 
is of even a more recent time and is the work of the 
Romans. This is true, especially, of the conspicuous 
carved screen that runs along behind the orchestra 



loo GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

space, and which may have supported the stage — if 
there was a stage at all. The paved orchestra will 
also strike one as unusual, contrasting with the green- 
sward to be seen in other similar structures, such as 
the theatre at Epidaurus. 

The vexed question of the use of any elevated stage 
in Greek theatres so divides the skilled archaeologists 
into warring camps even to-day that it ill becomes 
an amateur in the field to advance any opinion at all, 
one way or the other, upon the subject. There are 
eminent authorities who maintain that the use of a 
raised stage in such a theatre was utterly unknown 
by the ancients, and that any such development can 
only have come in comparatively modern times, un- 
der Roman auspices. Others insist, and with equal 
positiveness, that some sort of a stage was used by 
the more ancient Greeks. The arguments pro and 
con have waxed warm for several years, without con- 
vincing either side of its error. It is safe to say that 
American students generally incline to the view that 
there was no such raised stage, agreeing with the 
Germans, while English scholars appear generally to 
believe that the stage did exist and was used. As just 
remarked, the views of mere laymen in such a case 
are of small account, and I shall spare the reader 
my own, saying onl)?- that in the few reproductions of 
Greek plays that I myself have seen, there has been 



ANCIENT ATHENS loi 

no confusion whatever produced by having the prin- 
cipal actors present in the "orchestra" space with 
the chorus — and this, too, without the aid of the 
distinguishing cothurnos, or sandal, to give to the 
principals any added height. From this it seems to 
me not unreasonable to contend that, if a stage did 
exist, it was hardly called into being by any pressing 
necessity to avoid confusion, as some have argued ; 
while, on the contrary, it does seem as if the sepa- 
ration of the chief actors to the higher level would 
often mar the general effect. Such a play as the 
" Agamemnon " of ^Eschylus would, it seems to me, 
lose much by the employment of an elevated plat- 
form for those actors not of the chorus. In fact, there 
was no more need of any such difference in level, to 
separate chorus from principal, in ancient times than 
there is to-day. The ancients did, however, seek to 
differentiate the principals from the chorus players, 
by adding a cubit unto their stature, so to speak, for 
they devised thick-soled sandals that raised them 
above the ordinary height. Besides this they em- 
ployed masks, and occasionally even mechanism for 
aerial acting, and also subterranean passages. 

Whatever we may each conclude as to the exist- 
ence or non-existence of an elevated stage at the 
time of Pericles, we shall all agree, no doubt, that our 
modern stagecraft takes its nomenclature direct from 



I02 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the Greek. The " orchestra," which in the old Greek 
meant the circle in which the dancing and acting took 
place, we have taken over as a word referring to the 
floor space filled with the best seats, and by a still 
less justifiable stretch of the meaning we have come 
to apply it to the musicians themselves. Our modern 
" scene " is simply the old Greek word a-K-qv-fj (skene), 
meaning a " tent," which the ancient actors used as 
a dressing-room. The marble or stone wall, of vary- 
ing height, and pierced by doors for the entrance 
and exit of actors, was called by the Greeks the "pro- 
skenion," or structure before the skene, serving to 
conceal the portions behind the scenes and add back- 
ground to the action. The word is obviously the 
same as our modern "proscenium," though the mean- 
ing to-day is entirely different. In ancient times the 
proskenion, instead of being the arch framing the 
foreground of a "scene," was the background, or 
more like our modern " drop " scene. Being of per- 
manent character and made of stone, it generally 
represented a palace, with three entrances, and often 
with a colonnade. At either side of the proskenion 
were broad roads leading into the orchestra space, 
called the " parodoi," by means of which the cho- 
rus entered and departed on occasion, and through 
which chariots might be driven. Thus, for instance, in 
the " Agamemnon," that hero and Cassandra drove 



ANCIENT ATHENS 103 

through one of the parodoi into the orchestra, char- 
iots and all — a much more effective entrance than 
would have been possible had they been forced to 
climb aloft to a stage by means of the ladder repre- 
sented on some of the vases as used for the purpose. 
The side from which the actor entered often possessed 
significance, as indicating whether he came from the 
country or from the sea. As for disagreeable scenes, 
such as the murders which form the motif of the 
Oresteian trilogy, it may not be out of place to re- 
mark that they were almost never represented on the 
stage in sight of the orchestra or spectators, but were 
supposed always to take place indoors, the audience 
being apprized of events by groans and by the ex- 
planations of the chorus. The ordinary theatrical per- 
formance was in the nature of a religious ceremony, 
the altar of the god being in the centre of the or- 
chestra space, and served by the priest before the 
play began. And in leaving the subject, one may add 
that many Greek plays required sequels, so that they 
often came in groups of three, each separate from 
the other, but bearing a relation to each other not 
unlike our several acts of a single piece. So much 
for Greek theatres in general, and the theatre of 
Dionysus in particular. 

Leaving it by the iron gate above and plunging 
into a labyrinthine mass of houses just outside, one 



I04 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

will speedily come upon an interesting monument 
called the " choragic monument of Lysicrates." This 
is the only remaining representative of a series of 
pedestals erected by victors in musical or dancing 
fetes to support tripods celebrating their victories. 
This one, which is exceedingly graceful, has man- 
aged to survive and is a thing of beauty still, despite 
several fires and vicissitudes of which it bears traces. 
The street is still called the " Street of the Tripods." 
A few steps farther, and one emerges from the nar- 
rower lanes into the broader avenues of the city, and 
is confronted at once by the arch of Hadrian, which 
stands in an open field across the boulevard of Amalia. 
It is frankly and outspokenly Roman, of course, and 
does not flatter the Latin taste as compared with the 
Greek. It need delay nobody long, however, for the 
tall remaining columns of the temple of Olympian 
Zeus are just before, and are commanding enough 
to inspire attention at once. To those who prefer the 
stern simplicity of the Doric order of columns, the 
Corinthian capitals will not appeal. But the few huge, 
weathered pillars, despite the absence of roof or of 
much of the entablature, are grand in their own 
peculiar way, and the vast size of the temple as it 
originally stood may serve to show the reverence in 
which the father of the gods was held in the city of 
his great daughter, Athena. The more florid Corin- 




TEMPLE OF OLYMPIAN ZEUS 



ANCIENT ATHENS 105 

thian capital seems to have appealed to the Roman 
taste, and it is to be remembered that this great 
temple, although begun by Greeks, was completed 
in the time of Hadrian and after the dawn of the 
Christian era : so that if it disappoints one in com- 
parison with the more classic structures of the Acro- 
polis, it may be set down to the decadent Hellenistic 
taste rather than to a flaw in the old Hellenic. As 
for the Corinthian order of capital, it is supposed to 
have been devised by a Corinthian sculptor from a 
basket of fruit and flowers which he saw one day 
on a wall, perhaps as a funeral tribute. The idea in- 
spired him to devise a conventionalized flower basket 
with the acanthus leaf as the main feature, and to 
apply the same to the ornamentation of the tops of 
marble columns, such as these. 

On the northern side of the Acropolis, down among 
the buildings and alleys of the so-called "Turkish" 
quarter, there exist several fragmentary monuments, 
which may be passed over with little more than a 
word. The most complete and at the same time the 
most interesting of these relics is unquestionably the 
"Tower of the Winds," an octagonal building not 
unlike a windmill in shape and general size, but de- 
voted originally to the uses of town clock and wea- 
ther bureau. On its cornices, just below the top, are 
carved eight panels facing the different points of the 



io6 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

compass, the figures in high relief representing the sev- 
eral winds. The appropriate general characteristics 
of each wind are brought out by the sculpture — here 
an old man of sour visage brings snow and storms ; 
another, of more kindly mien, brings gentle rain ; 
others bring flowers and ripening fruits. A weather- 
vane once surmounted the structure. Near by, scat- 
tered among the houses, are bits of old porticoes, 
sometimes areas of broken columns, and at others 
quite perfect specimens still bearing their pedimental 
stones, testifying to the former presence of ancient 
market places, or public meeting places, in large part 
belonging to the later, or Roman, period. It was in 
this general vicinity that the original agora, or market 
place, stood, no doubt. In some of the porticoes were 
often to be found teachers of one sort or another, and 
in one " stoa" of this kind, we are told, taught those 
philosophers who, from the location of their school, 
came to be called "stoics" — giving us an adjective 
which to-day has lost every vestige of its derivative 
significance. Nothing remains of the other famous 
structures that are supposed to have been located in 
this vicinity, or at least nothing has been unearthed as 
yet, although possibly if some of the congested and 
rather mean houses of the quarter could be removed, 
some vestiges of this important section of the clas- 
sic city might be recovered. Nothing remains of the 



ANCIENT ATHENS 107 

ancient "agora," or market place, in which St. Paul 
said he saw the altar with this inscription, " To the 
unknown god." But the Areopagus, or Mars Hill, 
where Paul is supposed to have stood when he made 
his noble speech to the men of Athens, is still left 
and well repays frequent visitation. Its ancient fame 
as the place where the god Ares, or Mars, was tried 
for his life, and as the place of deliberation over the 
gravest Athenian affairs, has been augmented by the 
celebrity it derived from the apostle's eloquent ar- 
gument, in which he commented on the activity of 
the Athenian mind and its fondness for theology, a 
characteristic rather inadequately brought out by the 
Bible's rendering, "too superstitious." The Areopagus 
to-day is a barren rock devoid of vegetation or of any 
trace of building, although rough-hewn steps here 
and there and a rude leveling of the top are visible. 
Of the great events that have passed on this rocky 
knoll not a trace remains. With reference to the 
Acropolis towering above and close at hand. Mars 
Hill seems small, but the ascent of it from the plain 
is long and steep enough. It is apparently no more 
than an outlying spur of the main rock of the Acropo- 
lis, from which it is separated by a slight depression ; 
but it shares with the holy hill of Athena a celebrity 
which makes it the object of every thoughtful visitor's 
attention. From its top one may obtain almost the 



io8 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

best view of the afterglow of sunset on the temples 
and the Propylaea of the Acropolis, after the custo- 
dians of the latter have driven all visitors below ; and 
sitting there as the light fades one may lose himself 
readily in a reverie in which the mighty ones of old, 
from Ares himself down to the mortal sages of later 
days, pass in grand review, only to fade away from 
the mind and leave the eloquent apostle of the newer 
religion saying to the citizens gathered around him, 
'* Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, Him de- 
clare I unto you." Let us, if we will, believe that it 
was " in the midst of Mars Hill " that Paul preached his 
sonorous sermon, despite a tendency among schol- 
ars to suggest that he probably stood somewhere 
else, " close by or near to " rather than "in the midst 
of " the spot. If we paid undue heed to these icono- 
clastic theories of scientists, what would become of 
all our cherished legends? The traveler in Greece 
loses half the charm of the place if he cannot become 
as a little child and believe a good many things to be 
true enough that perhaps can hardly stand the severe 
test of archaeology. And why should he not do this? 
Peopled with ghostly memories also is the long, 
low ridge of rocky ground to the westward, across 
the broad avenue that leads from the plain up to 
the Acropolis, still bearing its ancient name of the 
"Pnyx." In the valley between lie evidences of a 



ANCIENT ATHENS 109 

bygone civilization, the crowded foundations of an- 
cient houses, perhaps of the poorer class, huddled 
together along ancient streets, the lines of which are 
faintly discernible among the ruins, while here and 
there are traces of old watercourses and drains, with 
deep wells and cisterns yawning up at the beholder. 
Thus much of the older town has been recovered, 
lying as it does in the open and beyond the reach of 
the present line of dwellings. Above this mass of ruin 
the hill rises to the ancient assembling place of the 
enfranchised citizens — the " Bema," or rostrum, from 
which speeches on public topics were made to the 
assembled multitude. The Bema is still in place, 
backed by a wall of huge "Cyclopean" masonry. 
Curiously enough the ground slopes downward from 
the Bema to-day, instead of upward as a good amphi- 
theatre for auditors should do, giving the impression 
that the eloquence of the Athenian orators must lit- 
erally have gone over the heads of their audiences. 
That this was anciently the case appears to be de- 
nied, however, and we are told that formerly the topo- 
graphy was quite the reverse of modern conditions, 
made so artificially with the aid of retaining walls, 
now largely destroyed. Until this is understood, the 
Bema and its neighborhood form one of the hardest 
things in Athens to reconstruct in memory. It is from 
the rocky platform of this old rostrum that one gets 



no GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the ideal view of the Acropolis, bringing out the per- 
fect subordination of the Propylaea to the Parthe- 
non, and giving even to-day a very fair idea of the 
appearance of the Acropolis and its temples as the 
ancients saw them. Fortunate, indeed, is one who 
may see these in the afternoon light standing out 
sharply against a background of opaque cloud, yet 
themselves colored by the glow of the declining sun. 
Of all the magnificent ruins in Greece, this is the finest 
and best, — the Acropolis from the Bema, or from any 
point along the ridge of the Pnyx. 

Of course that temple which is called, though 
possibly erroneously, the Theseum, is one of the best 
preserved of all extant Greek temples of ancient date, 
and is one of the most conspicuous sights of Athens, 
after the Acropolis and the temples thereon. And yet, 
despite that fact, it somehow fails to arouse anything 
like the same enthusiasm in the average visitor. 
Just why this is so it may be rash to attempt to say, 
but I suspect it is chiefly because the Theseum is, 
after all, a rather colorless and uninspiring thing by 
comparison with the Parthenon, lacking in individu- 
ality, although doubtless one would look long before 
finding real flaws in its architecture or proportions. 
It simply suffers because its neighbors are so much 
grander. If it stood quite alone as the temple at 
Segesta stands, or as stand the magnificent ruins at 



ANCIENT ATHENS iii 

Paestum, it would be a different matter. As it is, with 
the Parthenon looking down from the Acropolis not 
far away, the Theseum loses immeasurably in the 
effect that a specimen of ancient architecture so ob- 
viously perfect ought, in all justice, to command. It 
seems entirely probable that the failure of this smaller 
temple to inspire and lay hold on Athenian visitors is 
due to the overshadowing effect of its greater neigh- 
bors, which it feebly resembles in form without at all 
equaling their beauty, and in part also, perhaps, to 
the uncertainty about its name. That it was really a 
temple of Theseus, an early king of Athens, seems 
no longer to be believed by any, although no very 
satisfactory substitute seems to be generally accepted. 
It will remain the Theseum for many years to come, 
no doubt, if not for all time. Theseus certainly de- 
served some such memorial as this, and it is not 
amiss to believe that the bones of the hero were 
actually deposited here by Cimon when he brought 
them back from Scyros. The services of Theseus to 
the city were great. If we may, in childlike trust, ac- 
cept the testimony of legend, Theseus was the son 
of King ^geus and JEthra., but was brought up 
in the supposition that he was a son of Poseidon, 
in the far city of Trcezen. When he grew up, how- 
ever, he was given a sword and shield and sent to 
Athens, where his father, ^geus, was king. Escaping 



112 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

poisoning by Medea, he appeared at the Athenian 
court, was recognized by his armor, and was desig- 
nated by ^geus as his rightful successor. He per- 
formed various heroic exploits, freed Athens of her 
horrid tribute of seven boys and seven girls paid to 
the Cretan Minotaur, came back triumphant to Athens 
only to find that ^geus, mistaking the significance 
of his sails, which were black, had committed suicide 
by hurling himself in his grief from the Acropolis ; 
and thereupon, Theseus became king. He united the 
Attic cities in one state, instituted the democracy 
and generously abdicated a large share of the kingly 
power, devised good laws, and was ever after held in 
high esteem by the city — although he died in exile 
at Scyros, to which place he withdrew because of a 
temporary coolness of his people toward him. Cimon 
brought back his bones, however, in 469 B. C, and 
Theseus became a demi-god in the popular imagina- 
tion. The Theseum owes its splendid preservation 
to the fact that it was used, as many other temples 
were, as a Christian church, sacred to St. George of 
Cappadocia. 

Infinitely more pregnant with definite interest is 
the precinct of the Ceramicus, near the Dipylon, or 
double gate, of the city, which gave egress to the 
Eleusis road on the western side of the town, the re- 
mains of which are easily to be seen to-day. The 



ANCIENT ATHENS 113 

excavations at this point have recently been pushed 
with thoroughness and some very interesting frag- 
ments have come to Hght, buried for all these centu- 
ries in the " Themistoclean wall" of the city. It will 
be recalled that the Spartans, being jealous of the 
growing power of Athens, protested against the re- 
building of the walls. Themistocles, who was not only 
a crafty soul but in high favor at Athens at the time, 
undertook to go to Sparta and hold the citizens of 
that town at bay until the walls should be of sufficient 
height for defense. Accordingly he journeyed down 
to Sparta and pleaded the non-arrival of his ambas- 
sadorial colleagues as an excuse for delaying the open- 
ing of negotiations on the subject of the wall. Days 
passed and still the colleagues did not come, much 
to the ostensible anxiety and disgust of Themistocles, 
who still asserted they must soon arrive. Meantime 
every man, woman, and child in Athens was work- 
ing night and day to build those walls, heaping up 
outworks for the city from every conceivable mate- 
rial, sparing nothing, not even the gravestones of the 
Ceramicus district, in their feverish anxiety to get the 
walls high enough to risk an attack. The Roman con- 
sul worked no more assiduously at hewing down the 
famous bridge, nor did Horatius labor more arduously 
at his task, than did Themistocles in diplomatic duel 
with the men of Sparta. At last the news leaked out 



114 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

— but it was too late. The walls were high enough 
at last, and all further pretense of a delayed embassy 
was dropped. The diplomacy of the wily Themistocles 
had triumphed — and by no means for the first time. 
Out of this so-called Themistoclean wall there have 
recently been taken some of the grave " stelae," or 
flat slabs sculptured in low relief, from the places 
where the harassed Athenians cast them in such 
haste more than four centuries before Christ. They 
are battered and broken, but the figures on them are 
still easily visible, and while by no means sculpturally 
remarkable the relics possess an undoubted historical 
interest. 

The tombs of the Ceramicus district, which form 
an important part of the sculptural remains of Athe- 
nian art, are still numerous enough just outside the 
Dipylon Gate, although many examples have been 
housed in the National Museum for greater protec- 
tion against weather and vandals. Of those that for- 
tunately remain in situ along what was the beginning 
of the Sacred Way to Eleusis, there are enough to 
give a very fair idea of the appearance of this ancient 
necropolis, while the entire collection of tombstones 
affords one of the most interesting and complete 
exhibits to be seen in Athens. The excellence of the 
work calls attention to the high general level of skill 
achieved by the artisans of the time, for it is hardly 



ANCIENT ATHENS 115 

to be assumed that these memorials of the dead were 
any more often the work of the first Athenian artists 
of that day than is the case among our own people 
at present. 

The whole question of the Greek tomb sculpture 
is a tempting one, and a considerable volume of liter- 
ature already exists with regard to it. The artistic 
excellence of the stelae in their highest estate, the 
quaintness of the earlier efforts, the ultimate regula- 
tion of the size and style by statute to discourage 
extravagance, the frequent utilization of an older 
stone for second-hand uses, and a score of other 
interesting facts, might well furnish forth an entire 
chapter. As it is, we shall be obliged here briefly 
to pass over the salient points and consider with- 
out much pretense of detail the chief forms of tomb 
adornment that the present age has to show, pre- 
served from the day when all good Athenians dying 
were buried outside the gates on the Eleusinian way. 
Not only carved on the stelae themselves, but also 
placed on top of them, are to be seen reliefs or repro- 
ductions of long-necked amphorae, or two-handled 
vases, in great numbers. These are now known to 
have had their significance as referring to the un- 
married state of the deceased. They are nothing more 
nor less than reproductions of the vases the Greek 
maidens used to carry to the spring Callirrhoe for 



ii6 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

water for the nuptial bath, and the use of them in the 
tomb sculpture, on the graves of those who died un- 
married, is stated to have grown out of the idea that 
" those who died unwed had Hades for their bride- 
groom." These vases come the nearest to resembling 
modern grave memorials of any displayed at Athens, 
perhaps. The rest of the gravestones are entirely 
different both in appearance and in idea from any- 
thing we are accustomed to-day to use in our ceme- 
teries, and it is likely to be universally agreed that 
they far eclipse our modern devices in beauty. The 
modern graveyard contents itself in the main with 
having its graves marked with an eye to statistics, 
rather than artistic effect, save in the cases of the very 
rich, who may invoke the aid of eminent sculptors to 
adorn their burial plots. In Athens this seems not 
to have been so. There is very little in the way of 
inscription on the stones, save for the name. The 
majority are single panels containing bas-reliefs, 
which may or may not be portraits of the departed. 

The usual type of tomb relief of this sort seems 
to be a group of figures, sometimes two, sometimes 
three or four, apparently representing a leave-taking, 
or frequently the figure of a person performing some 
characteristic act of life. Of the latter the well-known 
tomb of Hegeso, representing a woman attended by 
her maid fingering trinkets in a jewel casket, is as 




TOMB AMPHORA, CERAMICUS 



ANCIENT ATHENS 117 

good a type as any, and it has the added merit of 
standing in its original place in the street of the tombs. 
Others of this kind are numerous enough in the 
museum. The aversion to the representation of death 
itself among the ancient Greeks is well understood, 
and many have argued from it that these tomb reliefs 
indicate an intention to recall the deceased as he 
or she was in life, without suggestion of mourning. 
Nevertheless, the obvious attitudes of sorrowful part- 
ing visible in many of the tomb stelae seem to me to 
do violence to this theory in its full strength. Among 
those which seem most indicative of this is a very 
well-executed one showing three figures, — an old 
man, a youth, and a little lad. The old man stands 
looking intently, but with a far-away gaze, at a 
splendidly built but thoughtful-visaged young man 
before him, while the lad behind is doubled up in a 
posture plainly indicating extreme grief, with his face 
apparently bathed in tears. The calm face of the 
youth, the grave and silent grief of the paternal- 
looking man, and the unbridled emotion of the boy, 
all speak of a parting fraught with intense sorrow. It 
might be any parting — but is it not more reasonable 
to assume that it means the parting which involves 
no return? 

The more archaic gravestones are best typified by 
the not unfamiliar sculpture, in low relief, of a war- 



ii8 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

rior leaning on a spear, or by the well-known little 
figure of Athena, similarly poised, mourning beside 
what appears to be a gravestone of a hero. It was 
one of the former type that we saw exhumed from 
the Themistoclean wall, with the warrior's figure and 
portions of the spear still easily discernible. 

It remains to speak, though very briefly and with- 
out much detail, of the National Museum itself, which 
is one of the chief glories of Athens, and which divides 
with the Acropolis the abiding interest and attention 
of every visitor. It is in many ways incomparable 
among the great museums of the world, although 
others can show more beautiful and more famous 
Greek statues. The British Museum has the Elgin 
marbles from the Parthenon, which one would to-day 
greatly prefer to see restored to Athens ; the Vatican 
holds many priceless and beautiful examples of the 
highest Greek sculptural art ; Munich has the inter- 
esting pedimental figures from the temple at ^gina ; 
Naples and Paris have collections not to be despised ; 
but nowhere may one find under a single roof so 
wide a range of Greek sculpture, from the earliest 
strivings after form and expression to the highest 
ultimate success, as in the Athenian National Museum, 
with its priceless treasures in marble and in bronze. 
The wealth of statues, large and small, quaintly primi- 
tive or commandingly lovely, in all degrees of relief 




TOMB RELIEF, CERAMICUS 



ANCIENT ATHENS 119 

and in the round, is stupendous. And while it may 
be heresy to pass over the best of the marbles for 
anything else, it is still a fact that many will turn from 
all the other treasures of the place to the ** bronze 
boy " as we will call him for lack of a better name. 
This figure of a youth, of more than life size and 
poised lightly as if about to step from his pedestal, 
with one hand extended, and seemingly ready to 
speak, is far less well known than he deserves to be, 
chiefly because it is but a few years since the sponge 
divers found him in the bed of the ocean and brought 
him back to the light of day. At present nobody pre- 
sumes to say whether this splendid figure represents 
any particular hero. He might be Perseus, or Paris, 
or even Hermes. His hand bears evidence of having 
at one time clasped some object, whether the head 
of Medusa, the apple, or the caduceus, it is impos- 
sible to say. But the absence of winged sandals ap- 
pears to dismiss the chance that he was Hermes, and 
the other identifications are so vague as to leave it 
perhaps best to refer to him only as an " ephebus," 
or youth. The bronze has turned to a dark green, 
and such restorations as had to be made are quite 
invisible, so that to all outward seeming the statue 
is as perfect as when it was first cast. The eyes, in- 
laid with consummate skill to simulate real eyes, sur- 
pass in lifelike effect those of the celebrated bronze 



I20 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

charioteer at Delphi. That a more detailed descrip- 
tion of this figure is given here is not so much that 
it surpasses the other statues of the museum, but 
because it is so recent in its discovery that almost 
nothing has been printed about it for general circula- 
tion. 

It would be almost endless and entirely profitless 
to attempt any detailed consideration of the multitude 
of objects of this general sculptural nature which the 
museum contains, and volumes have been written 
about them all, from the largest and noblest of the 
marbles to the smallest of the island gems. It may 
not be out of place, however, to make brief mention 
of the spoils of Mycenae which are housed here, and 
which reproductions have made generally familiar, 
because later we shall have occasion to visit Mycenae 
itself and to discuss in more detail that once proud 
but now deserted city, the capital which Agamemnon 
made so famous. In a large room set apart for the 
purpose are to be seen the treasures that were taken 
from the six tombs, supposed to be royal graves, that 
were unearthed in the midst of the Mycenaean agora, 
including a host of gold ornaments, cups, rosettes, 
chains, death masks, weapons, and human bones. 
Whether Dr. Schliemann, as he so fondly hoped and 
claimed, really laid bare the burial place of the con- 
queror of Troy, or whether what he found was some- 




National Museum, Athent 



BRONZE EPHEBUS 



ANCIENT ATHENS 121 

thing far less momentous, the fact remains that he 
did exhume the bodies of a number of personages 
buried in the very spot where legend said the famous 
heroes and heroines were buried, together with such 
an array of golden gear that it seems safe to assert 
that these were at any rate the tombs of royalty. If 
one can divest his mind of the suspicions raised 
by the ever-cautious archaeologist and can persuade 
himself that he sees perhaps the skeleton and sword 
of the leader of the Argive host that went to re- 
capture Helen, this Mycenaean room is of literally 
overwhelming interest. Case after case ranged about 
the room reveals the cunningly wrought ornaments 
that gave to Mycenae the well-deserved Homeric 
epithet "rich-in-gold." From the grotesque death 
masks of thin gold leaf to the heavily embossed 
Vaphio cups, everything bears testimony to the high 
perfection of the goldsmith's art in the pre-Homeric 
age. Of all this multitude of treasures, the chief ob- 
jects are unquestionably the embossed daggers and 
the large golden cups, notably the two that bear the 
exceedingly well-executed golden bulls, and the so- 
called " Nestor" cup, which, with its rather angular 
shape and its double handle, reproduces exactly the 
cup that Homer describes as belonging to that wise 
and reverend counselor. 

As has been hinted, the scientific archaeologists. 



122 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

less swept away by Homeric enthusiasm than was 
Schliemann, have proved skeptical as to the identifi- 
cation of the tombs which Schliemann so confidently 
proclaimed at first discovery. The unearthing of a 
sixth tomb, where the original excavator had looked 
for only five, is supposed to have done violence to 
the Agamemnonian theory. But what harm can it do 
if we pass out of the Mycenaean room with a secret, 
though perhaps an ignorant, belief that we have looked 
upon the remains and accoutrements of one who was 
an epic hero, the victim of a murderous queen, the 
avenger of a brother's honor, and the conqueror of a 
famous city ? It is simply one more of those cases in 
which one gains immeasurably in pleasure if he can 
dismiss scientific questionings from his mind and pass 
through the scene unskeptical of the heroes of the 
mighty past, if not of the very gods of high Olympus 
themselves. It may be wrong ; to a scientific inves- 
tigator such guileless trust is doubtless laughable. 
But on our own heads be it if therein we err 1 



CHAPTER VII. EXCURSIONS IN 
ATTICA 




AS the admirable Baedeker well says, the stay 
in Athens is undoubtedly the finest part of a 
visit to Greece, and it is so not merely because of the 
many attractions and delights of the city itself, but 
because also of the numerous short trips aside which 
can be made in a day's time, without involving a 
night's absence. Such little journeys include the 
ascent of Pentelicus, whose massive peak rises only 
a few miles away, revealing even from afar the great 
gash made in his side by the ancients in quest of 
marble for their buildings and statues ; the ride out 
to the battlefield of Marathon ; the incomparable drive 
to Eleusis ; the jaunt by rail or sea to Sunium ; and 
last, but by no means least, the sail over to JEgina.. 
Marathon has no ruins to show. Aside from the in- 
terest attaching to that famous battleground as a site, 
there is nothing to call one thither, if we except the 
tumulus, or mound, which marks the exact spot of 



124 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the conflict which was so important to the history of 
western Europe. Neither Marathon nor Thermopylae 
can offer much to-day but memories. But Sunium, 
^gina, and Eleusis possess ruins decidedly worth a 
visit in addition to much scenic loveliness, and the 
last-named is a spot so interwoven with the highest 
and best in Greek tradition that it offers a peculiar 
charm. 

It is perfectly possible to journey to Eleusis by train, 
but to elect that method of approach is to miss one 
of the finest carriage rides to be had in the vicinity of 
Athens. The road leads out of the city through its 
unpretentious western quarter, by the " street of the 
tombs " to the vale of the Cephissus, where it follows 
the line of the old *' sacred way " to Eleusis, over 
which, on the stated festivals, the procession of torch- 
bearing initiates wended its way by night to the 
shrine of Demeter. From the river — which to-day is 
a mere sandy channel most of the year — the smooth, 
hard highway rises gradually from the Attic plain to 
the mountain wall of Parnes, making straight for a 
narrow defile still known as the Pass of Daphne, 
This pass affords direct communication between the 
Attic and Thriasian plains, and save for the loftier 
valley farther north, through which the Peloponnesian 
railroad runs, is the only break in the mountain bar- 
rier. Eleusis and Attica were always so near — and 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 125 

yet so far apart. When the Spartans invaded the 
region, Athens felt no alarm from their proximity 
until they had actually entered her own plain, so 
remote seemed the valley about Eleusis, despite its 
scant ten miles of distance, simply because it was so 
completely out of sight. As the carriage ascends the 
gentle rise to the pass, the plain of Attica stretches 
out behind, affording an open vista from the Piraeus 
to the northern mountains, a green and pleasant vale 
despite its dearth of trees, while the city of Athens 
dominates the scene and promises a fine spectacle by 
sunset as one shall return from the pass at evening, 
facing the commanding Acropolis aglow in the after- 
light. 

A halt of a few moments at the top of the pass 
gives an opportunity to alight and visit an old church 
just beside the road. It was once adjoined by some 
monastic cloisters, now in ruins. Unlike most of the 
Greek churches, this one possesses a quaint charm 
from without, and within displays some very curious 
old mosaics in the ceiling. On either side of its door- 
way stand two sentinel cypresses, their sombre green 
contrasting admirably with the dull brown tones of 
the building, while across the close, in a gnarled old 
tree, are hung the bells of the church. The use of 
the neighboring tree as a campanile is by no means 
uncommon in Greece, and a pretty custom it is. The 



126 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

groves were God's first temples ; and if they are no 
longer so, it is yet true in Greece at least that the 
trees still bear the chimes that call the devout to 
prayer. Inside the building, in addition to the quaint 
Byzantine decorations, one may find something of 
interest in the curious votive offerings, before re- 
ferred to as common in Greek churches, suspended 
on the altar screen. Thanks for the recovered use of 
arms, eyes, legs, and the like seem to be expressed 
by hanging in the church a small white-metal model 
of the afflicted organ which has been so happily 
restored. I believe I have called attention to this 
practice as a direct survival of the old custom of 
the worshipers of Asklepios, which finds a further 
amplification in many churches farther west, — in 
Sicily, for example, — where pictures of accidents are 
often found hung in churches by those who have been 
delivered from bodily peril and who are desirous to 
commemorate the fact. In the church in Daphne Pass 
we found for the first time instances of the votive offer- 
ing of coins, as well as of anatomical models. The 
significance of this I do not pretend to know, but by 
analogy one might assume that the worshiper was 
returning thanks for relief from depleted finances. 
The coins we saw in this church were of different 
denominations, all of silver, and representing several 
different national currency systems. 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 127 

Behind the church on either side rise the pine- 
clad slopes of the Parnes range, displaying a most 
attractive grove of fragrant trees, through the midst 
of which Daphne's road permits us to pass. And 
in a brief time the way descends toward the bay of 
Salamis, shining in the sun, directly at one's feet, 
while the lofty and extensive island of that immortal 
name appears behind it. So narrow are the straits 
that for a long time Salamis seems almost like a part 
of the mainland, while the included bay appears more 
like a large and placid lake than an arm of a tideless 
sea. The carriage road skirts the wide curve of the 
bay for several level miles, the village of Eleusis — 
now called Levsina — being always visible at the far 
extremity of the bay and marked from afar by prosaic 
modern factory chimneys. It lies low in the landscape, 
which is a pastoral one. The highway winds along 
past a score of level farms, and at least two curious 
salt lakes are to be seen, lying close to the road and 
said to be tenanted by sea fish, although supplied 
apparently from inland sources. They are higher in 
level than the bay, and there is a strong outflow from 
them to the sea waters beyond. Nevertheless, they 
are said to be salt and to support salt-water life. 

Eleusis as a town is not attractive. The sole claim 
on the visitor is found in the memories of the place 
and in the ruined temples, which are in the heart of 



128 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the village itself. The secret of the mysteries, despite 
its wide dissemination among the Athenians and 
others, has been well kept — so well that almost 
nothing is known of the ceremony and less of its 
teaching. In a general way there is known only the 
fact that it had to do with the worship of Demeter, 
the goddess of the harvest, and that the mysteries 
concerned in some way the legend of the rape of 
Kora (Proserpine) by Hades (Pluto). There are hints 
as to certain priests, sacred vessels, symbols and rites, 
some of which appear not to have been devoid of 
grossness — but nothing definite is known, and prob- 
ably nothing definite ever will be. The general tone of 
the mysteries seems to have been high, for no less an 
authority than Cicero, who was initiated into the cult 
in the later and decadent days of the Greek nation, 
regarded the teachings embodied in the Eleusinian 
rites as the highest product of the Athenian culture, 
and averred that they "enabled one to live more 
happily on earth and to die with a fairer hope." It 
was, of course, unlawful for anybody to reveal the 
secrets ; and although the initiation was apparently 
open to any one who should seek it, so that the num- 
ber of devotees was large during a long succession 
of years, the secret was faithfully kept by reason of 
the great reverence in which the mysteries were held. 
That some of the features verged on wanton license 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 129 

has been alleged, and it may have been this that 
inspired the wild and brilliant young Alcibiades to 
burlesque the ceremony, to the scandal of pious 
Athenians and to his own ultimate undoing. For it 
was a trial on this charge that recalled Alcibiades 
from Sicily and led to his disgrace. 

The approach to the vast main temple is unusual, 
in that it is by an inclined plane rather than by steps. 
Even to-day the ruts of chariot wheels are to be 
distinguished in this approaching pavement. The 
temple itself was also most unusual, for instead of a 
narrow cella sufficient only for the colossal image of 
the deity, there was a vast nave, and room for a large 
concourse of worshipers. On the side next the hil- 
lock against which the temple was built there is a 
long, low flight of hewn steps, possibly used for seats, 
while the many column bases seem to argue either a 
second story or a balcony as well as a spacious roof. 
Much of the original building is distinguishable, de- 
spite the fact that the Romans added a great deal ; 
for the Latin race seems to have found the rites to 
its liking, so that it took care to preserve and beautify 
the place after its own ideas of beauty. If the surviv- 
ing medallion of some Roman emperor which is to 
be seen near the entrance of the Propylaea is a fair 
sample, however, one may doubt with reason the 
effectiveness of the later additions to the buildings on 



I30 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the spot. The Roman Propylsea was built by Appius 
Claudius Pulcher, but if the medallion portrait is his 
own, one must conclude that the "Pulcher" was gross 
flattery. 

The ruins are extensive, but mainly flat, so that 
their interest as ruins is almost purely archaeological. 
The ordinary visitor will find the chief charm in the 
memories of the place. Of course there is a museum 
on the spot, as in every Greek site. It contains a 
large number of fragments from the temples and 
Propylaea, bits of statuary and bas-relief having chiefly 
to do with Demeter and her attendant goddesses. 
By far the most interesting and most perfect of the 
Eleusinian reliefs, however, is in the national museum 
at Athens — a large slab representing Demeter and 
Proserpine bestowing the gift of seed corn on the 
youth Triptolemus, who is credited with the invention 
of the plow. For some reason, doubtless because of 
the hospitality of his family to her, Triptolemus won 
the lasting favor of Demeter, who not only gave him 
corn but instructed him in the art of tilling the stub- 
born glebe. It seems entirely probable that Triptole- 
mus and Kora shared in the mystic rites at Eleusis. 
As for the dying with a " fairer hope " spoken of by 
Cicero as inculcated by the ceremonies of the cult, 
one may conjecture that it sprang from some early 
pagan interpretation of the principle later enunciated 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 131 

in the Scriptural " Except a grain of wheat fall into the 
ground and die." 

Eleusis itself lies on a low knoll in the midst of the 
Thriasian plain, which in early spring presents a most 
attractive appearance of fertility on every side, appro- 
priately enough to the traditions of the spot. From 
the top of the hillock behind the great temple and 
the museum, one obtains a good view of the vale 
northward and of the sacred way winding off toward 
Corinth by way of Megara. Where the plain stops 
and the mountain wall approaches once again close 
to the sea, this road grows decidedly picturesque, 
recalling in a mild way the celebrated Amalfi drive 
as it rises and falls on the face of the cliff. Nor should 
one pass from the subject of Eleusis without mention- 
ing the numerous little kids that frisk over the ruins, 
attended by anxious mother-goats, all far from un- 
friendly. Kids are common enough sights in Greece, 
and to lovers of pets they are always irresistible ; but 
nowhere are they more so than at Eleusis, where they 
add their mite of attractiveness to the scene. The 
grown-up goat is far from pretty, but by some curious 
dispensation of nature the ugliest of animals seem 
to have the most attractive young, and the frisking 
lambs and kids of Greece furnish striking examples 
of it. 

The ride back to the city must be begun in season 



132 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

to get the sunset light on the west front of the Acro- 
poHs, which is especially effective from the Eleusis 
road all the way from Daphne's Pass to the city 
proper. As for Salamis, which is always in sight until 
the pass is crossed, it is enough to say that, like 
Marathon, it is a place of memories only. The bay 
that one sees from the Eleusis road is not the one in 
which the great naval battle was fought. That lies 
on the other side, toward the open gulf, and is best 
seen from the sea. Few care to make a special excur- 
sion to the island itself, which is rocky and barren, 
and after all the chief interest is in its immediate 
waters. The account of the battle in Herodotus is 
decidedly worth reading on the spot, and to this day 
they will show you a rocky promontory supposed to 
have been the point where Xerxes had his throne 
placed so that he might watch the fight which resulted 
so disastrously to his ships. The battle, by the way, 
was another monument to the wiles of Themistocles, 
who recognized in the bulwarks of the ships the 
" wooden walls " which the oracle said would save 
Athens, and who, when he found the commanders 
weakening, secretly sent word to the Persians urg- 
ing them to close in and fight. This was done ; and 
the navy being reduced to the necessity of conflict 
acquitted itself nobly. 

Of the other local excursions, that to Marathon is 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 133 

easily made in a day by carriage. There is little to 
see there, save a plain, lined on the one hand by the 
mountains which look on Marathon, and on the other 
by the sea, largely girt with marshes. The lion which 
once crowned the tumulus is gone, nobody knows 
whither. It is much, however, from a purely senti- 
mental point of view, to have stood upon the site it- 
self, the scene of one of the world's famous battles. 
Some grudging critics, including the erudite Mahaffy, 
incline to believe that Marathon was a rather small 
affair, judged by purely military standards — a con- 
flict of one undisciplined host with an even less dis- 
ciplined one, in an age when battles ordinarily were 
won by an endurance of nerve in the face of a 
hand-to-hand charge rather than by actual carnage. 
These maintain that the chief celebrity of Marathon 
rests not on its military glories, but on the fame which 
the Athenians, a literary race, gave it in song and 
story. But even these have to admit that Marathon 
meant much to history, and that the psychological 
effect of it was enormous, as showing that the Per- 
sians were by no means invincible, so that ten years 
later Salamis put the finishing blow to Persian attempts 
on the west. For those who do not care to make the 
long ride to the field itself, it is quite possible to 
obtain a view of the plain from the summit of Pen- 
telicus, something like fifteen miles away, although 



134 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

this does not reveal the mound marking the actual 
site. 

That mountain's chief celebrity is, of course, to be 
found in the great marble quarries from which came 
the stone for the Acropolis temples, and it is these 
rather than the view of Marathon that draw climbers 
to the famous height. The ancient quarries lie far 
up on the side of the slope, and the marks of the old 
chisels are still plainly to be discerned. The difficul- 
ties of getting out perfect stone in the ancient days 
seem to have been enormous ; but that they were 
surmounted is obvious from the fact that the great 
blocks used in building the Parthenon and Propy- 
Isea were handled with comparative speed, as shown 
by the relatively few years occupied in erecting them. 
It seems probable that the stone was slid down the 
mountain side in chutes to the point where it was 
feasible to begin carting it. Inherent but invisible 
defects naturally occurred, and these the ancients 
managed to detect by sounding with a mallet. Sam- 
ples of these imperfect blocks are to be seen lying 
where they fell when the builders rejected them, not 
only on the road by the quarries but on the Acropo- 
lis itself. 

Sunium, the famous promontory at the extremity 
of the Attic peninsula, may be reached by a train 
on the road that serves the ancient silver mines of 




THE TEMPLE AT SUNIUM 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 135 

Laurium, but as the trains are slow and infrequent 
it is better, if one can, to go down by sea. Our own 
visit was so made, the vessel landing us accommo- 
datingly at the foot of the promontory on which a 
few columns of the ancient temple are still standing. 
The columns that remain are decidedly whiter than 
those on the Acropolis, and the general effect is 
highly satisfying to one's preconceived ideas of Greek 
ruins. Dispute is rife as to the particular deity to 
whom this shrine was anciently consecrated, and the 
rivalry lies between those traditional antagonists, 
Athena and Poseidon, each of whom advances plau- 
sible claims. How the case can be decided without 
another contest between the two, like that supposed 
to have taken place on the Acropolis itself and de- 
picted by Pheidias, is not clear. For who shall decide 
when doctors of archaeology disagree ? 

The chief architectural peculiarity of the Sunium 
temple is the arrangement of its frontal columns " in 
antis," — that is to say, included between two pro- 
jecting ends of the side walls. And, in addition, one 
regrets to say that the ruin is peculiar in affording 
evidences of modern vandalism more common in our 
own country than in Hellas, namely, the scratching 
of signatures on the surface of the stone. All sorts of 
names have been scrawled there, — English, French, 
Italian, American, Greek, — and most famous of all, 



136 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

no doubt, the unblushing signature of no less a per- 
sonage than Byron himself ! Perhaps, however, it is 
not really his. There may be isolated instances of 
this low form of vandalism elsewhere, but I do not 
recall any that can compare with the volume of de- 
facing scrawls to be seen at Sunium. 

Lovelier far than Sunium is the situation of the 
temple in ^gina, occupying a commanding height 
in that large and lofty island on the other side of the 
gulf, opposite the Pirseus and perhaps six or seven 
miles distant from that port. The journey to it is 
necessarily by sea, and it has become a frequent 
objective point for steamer excursions landing near 
the temple itself rather than at the distant town. In 
the absence of a steamer, it is possible to charter 
native boats for a small cost and with a fair breeze 
make the run across the bay in a comparatively brief 
time. From the cove where parties are generally 
landed the temple cannot be seen, as the slopes are 
covered with trees and the shrine itself is distant 
some twenty minutes on foot. Donkeys can be had, 
as usual, but they save labor rather than time, and the 
walk, being through a grove of fragrant pines, is far 
from arduous or fatiguing. The odor of the pines is 
most agreeable, the more so because after one has so- 
journed for a brief time in comparatively treeless At- 
tica one is the more ready to welcome a scent of the 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 137 

forest. The pungency of the grove is due, however, 
less to the pine needles and cones than to the tapping, 
or rather " blazing," of the trunks for their resin. Un- 
der nearly every tree will be found stone troughs, into 
which the native juice of the tree oozes with painful 
slowness. The resin, of course, is for the native wines, 
which the Greek much prefers flavored with that in- 
gredient. The drinking of resinated wine is an acquired 
taste, so far as foreigners are concerned. Some sol- 
emnly aver that they like it, — and even prefer it to 
the unresinated kind ; but the average man not to the 
manner born declares it to be only less palatable than 
medicine. The Greeks maintain that the resin adds to 
the healthfulness of the wines, and to get the gum they 
have ruined countless pine groves by this tapping 
process so evident in the ^gina woods, for the gashes 
cut in the trees have the effect of stunting the growth. 
After a steady ascent of a mile or so, the temple 
comes suddenly into view, framed in a foreground of 
green boughs, which add immensely to the effective- 
ness of the picture, and which make one regret the 
passing of the Greek forests in other places. Once 
upon a time the ordinary temple must have gained 
greatly by reason of its contrast with the foliage of 
the surrounding trees ; but to-day only those at ^gina 
and at Bassae present this feature to the beholder. This 
^gina temple is variously attributed to Athena and 



138 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

to Zeus Panhellenius, so that, as at Sunium, there is 
a chance for doubt. The chief peculiarity seems to be 
that the entrance door, which is as usual in the eastern 
side, is not exactly in the centre of the cella. The col- 
umns are still standing to a large extent, but the pedi- 
mental sculptures have been removed to Munich, so 
that the spot is robbed, as the Acropolis is, of a por- 
tion of its charm. It is a pity, because the yEginetan 
pedimental figures were most interesting, furnishing 
a very good idea of the ^ginetan style of sculpture 
of an early date. The figures which survive, to the 
number of seventeen, in a very fair state of preserva- 
tion, represent warriors in various active postures, and 
several draped female figures, including a large statue 
of Athena. Those who have never seen these at Mu- 
nich are doubtless familiar with the reproductions in 
plaster which are common in all first-class museums 
boasting collections of Greek masterpieces. 

The island of ^gina, which is large and mountain- 
ous, forms a conspicuous feature of the gulf in which 
it lies. It is close to the Peloponnesian shore, and from 
the temple a magnificent view is outspread in every 
direction, not only over the mountains of the Argolid 
but northward toward Corinth, — and on a clear day it 
is said that even the summit of Parnassus can be de- 
scried. Directly opposite lies Athens, with which city 
the island long maintained a successful rivalry. The 




THE APPROACH TO ^GINA 




THE TEMPLE AT yEGINA 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 139 

chief celebrity of the spot was achieved under its in- 
dependent existence, about the seventh century B. c, 
and before Athens subjugated it. It was then tenanted 
by colonists from Epidaurus, who had the commercial 
instinct, and who made ^gina a most prosperous 
place. The name is said to be derived from the nymph 
^gina, who was brought to the island by Zeus. The 
hardy ^ginetan sailors were an important factor in 
the battle of Salamis, to which they contributed not 
only men but sacred images ; and they were not en- 
tirely expelled from their land by the Athenian domi- 
nation until 431 B. C. Thereafter the prominence of 
the city dwindled and has never returned. 

It remains to describe an excursion which we made 
to the north of Athens one day shortly after Easter, to 
witness some peasant dances. These particular festivi- 
ties were held at Menidi, and were rather less exten- 
sive than the annual Easter dances at Megara, but 
still of the same general type ; and as they constitute 
a regular spring feature of Attic life, well worth seeing 
if one is at Athens at the Easter season, it is not out 
of place to describe them here. Either Megara or 
Menidi may be reached easily by train, and Menidi 
is not a hard carriage ride, being only six miles or so 
north of Athens, in the midst of the plain. It may 
be that these dances are direct descendants of an- 
cient rites, like so many of the features of the present 



I40 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Orthodox church ; but whatever their significance and 
history, they certainly present the best opportunity to 
see the peasantry of the district in their richest gala 
array, which is something almost too gorgeous to 
describe. 

The drive out to the village over the old north road 
was dusty and hot, and we were haunted by a fear 
that the dances might be postponed, as occasionally 
happens. These doubts were removed, however, when 
Menidi at last hove in sight as we drove over an un- 
dulation of the plain and came suddenly upon the vil- 
lage in holiday dress, flags waving, peasant girls and 
swains in gala garb, and streets lined with booths for 
the vending of sweetmeats, Syrian peanuts, pistachio 
nuts, loukoumi, and what the New England mer- 
chant would call " notions." Indeed, it was all very 
suggestive of the New England county fair, save for 
the gorgeousness of the costumes. The streets were 
thronged and everybody was in a high good-humor. 
What it was all about we never knew. Conflicting 
reports were gleaned from the natives, some to the 
effect that it was, and some that it was not, essen- 
tially a churchly affair ; but all agreed apparently that 
it had no connection with the Easter feast, although 
it was celebrated something like five days thereafter. 
Others mentioned a spring as having something to 
do with it, — suggesting a possible pagan origin. 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 141 

This view gained color from the energy with which 
lusty youths were manipulating the town pump in 
the village square, causing it to squirt a copious 
stream to a considerable distance, — a performance 
in which the bystanders took an unflagging and 
unbounded delight That the celebration was not de- 
void of its religious significance was evident from 
the open church close by thronged with devout peo- 
ple coming and going, each obtaining a thin yellow 
taper to light and place in the huge many-branched 
candelabrum. The number of these soon became so 
great that the priests removed the older ones and 
threw them in a heap below, to make room for fresh- 
lighted candles. Those who deposited coins in the 
baptismal font near the door were rewarded with a 
sprinkling of water by the attendant priest, who con- 
stantly dipped a rose in the font and shook it over 
those who sought this particular form of benison. 

Outside, the square was thronged with merry- 
makers, some dancing in the solemn Greek fashion, 
in a circle with arms extended on each others' shoul- 
ders, moving slowly around and around to the mono- 
tonous wail of a clarionet. Others were seated under 
awnings sipping coffee, and to such a resort we were 
courteously escorted by the local captain of the gen- 
darmerie, whose acquaintance we had made in Athens 
and who proved the soul of hospitality. Here we sat 



142 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

and drank the delicious thick coffee, accompanied by 
the inevitable huge beaker of water drawn from the 
rocky slopes of Fames, and watched the dancers and 
the passing- crowds. The dress of the men was seldom 
conspicuous. Many wore European clothes like our 
own, although here and there might be seen one in 
the national costume of full white skirts and close- 
fitting leggings, leather wallet, and zouave jacket. 
But the women were visions of incomparable mag- 
nificence. Their robes were in the main of white, but 
the skirts were decked with the richest of woolen 
embroideries, heavy and thick, extending for several 
inches upward from the lower hem, in a profusion of 
rich reds, blues, and browns. Aprons similarly adorned 
were worn above. Most impressive of all, however, 
were the sleeveless overgarments or coats, such as 
we had seen and bickered over in Shoe Lane, — 
coats of white stuff, bordered with a deep red facing 
and overlaid with intricate tracery in gold lace and 
gold braid. These were infinitely finer than any we had 
seen in the Athens shops, and they made the scene 
gay indeed with a barbaric splendor. To add to the 
gorgeousness of the display, the girls wore flat caps, 
bordered with gold lace and coins, giving the effect of 
crowns, flowing veils which did not conceal the face 
but fell over the shoulders, and on their breasts many 
displayed a store of gold and silver coins arranged as 




PEASANT DANCERS AT MENIDI 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 143 

bangles — their dowries, it was explained. Most of 
these young women were betrothed, it developed, 
and custom dictated this parade of the marriage por- 
tion, which is no small part of the Greek wedding 
arrangement. The cuffs of the full white sleeves were 
embroidered like the aprons and skirt bottoms, and 
the whole effect was such as to be impossible of ade- 
quate description. 

One comely damsel, whose friends clamored us to 
photograph her, scampered nimbly into her court- 
yard, only to be dragged forth bodily by a proud 
young swain, who announced himself her betrothed 
and who insisted that she pose for the picture, willy- 
nilly, — which she did, joining amiably in the general 
hilarity, and exacting a promise of a print when the 
picture should be finished. The ice once broken, the 
entire peasant population became seized with a desire 
to be photographed, and it was only the beginning 
of the great dance that dissolved the clamoring 
throng. 

The dance was held on a broad level space, just 
east of the town, about which a crowd had already 
gathered. We were escorted thither and duly pre- 
sented to the demarch, or mayor, who bestowed upon 
us the freedom of the city and the hospitality of his 
own home if we required it. He was a handsome man, 
dressed in a black cut-away coat and other garments 



144 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of a decidedly civilized nature, which seemed curi- 
ously incongruous in those surroundings, as indeed 
did his own face, which was pronouncedly Hibernian 
and won for him the sobriquet of " O'Sullivan " on 
the spot. His stay with us was brief, for the dance was 
to begin, and nothing would do but the mayor should 
lead the first two rounds. This he did with much 
grace, though we were told that he did not relish the 
task, and only did it because if he balked the votes 
at the next election would go to some other aspirant. 
The dance was simple enough, being a mere solemn 
circling around of a long procession of those gor- 
geous maidens, numbering perhaps a hundred or 
more, hand in hand and keeping time to the music 
of a quaint band composed of drum, clarionet, and 
a sort of penny whistle. The demarch danced best 
of all, and after two stately rounds of the green in- 
closure left the circle and watched the show at his 
leisure, his face beaming with the sweet conscious- 
ness of political security and duty faithfully per- 
formed. 

How long the dance went on we never knew. The 
evening was to be marked by a display of fireworks, 
the frames for which were already in evidence and 
betokened a magnificence in keeping with the cos- 
tumes of the celebrants. For ourselves, satiated with 
the display, we returned to our carriage laden with 



EXCURSIONS IN ATTICA 145 

flowers, pistachio nuts, and strings of beads bestowed 
by the abundant local hospitality, and bowled home 
across the plain in time to be rewarded with a fine 
sunset glow on the Parthenon as a fitting close for a 
most unusual and enjoyable day. 



CHAPTER VIII. DELPHI 




THE pilgrimage to Delphi, which used to be 
fraught with considerable hardship and incon- 
venience, is happily so no longer. It is still true that 
the Greek steamers plying between the Piraeus and 
Itea, the port nearest the ancient oracular shrine, leave 
much to be desired and are by no means to be depended 
upon to keep to their schedules ; but aside from this 
minor difficulty there is nothing to hinder the ordinary 
visitor from making the journey, which is far and away 
the best of all ordinary short rambles in Greece, not 
only because of the great celebrity of the site itself, but 
because of the imposing scenic attractions Delphi has 
to show. The old-time drawback, the lack of decent 
accommodation at Delphi itself, or to be more exact, 
at the modern village of Kastri, has been removed by 
the presence of two inns, of rather limited capacity, it 
is true, but still affording very tolerable lodging. In- 
deed, hearsay reported the newer of these tiny hostel- 



DELPHI 147 

ries to be one of the best in Greece outside of Athens, 
while the other quaint resort, owned and operated by 
the amiable Vasili Paraskevas, one of the " local charac- 
ters " of the place, has long been esteemed by Hellenic 
visitors. Vasili, in appearance almost as formidable as 
the ancient Polyphemus, but in all else as gentle as the 
sucking dove, has felt the force of competition, and his 
advertisements easily rival those of the Hotel Cecil. 
As a matter of fact, the establishment is delightfully 
primitive, seemingly hanging precariously to the very 
edge of the deep ravine that lies just under lofty Delphi, 
boasting several small rooms and even the promise of 
a bath-tub, although Vasili was forced to admit that 
his advertisement in that respect was purely prospec- 
tive and indicative of intention rather than actuality. 
The truly adventurous may still approach Delphi 
over the ancient road by land from the eastward, doubt- 
less the same highway that was taken by old King 
Laios when he was slain on his way to the oracle, all 
unwitting of the kinship, by his own son CEdipus, — 
possibly because of a dispute as to which should yield 
the road. For the old road was a narrow one, with 
deep ruts, suitable for a single chariot, but productive 
of frequent broils when two such haughty spirits met 
on the way. To come to Delphi over this road and 
to depart by sea is doubtless the ideal plan. That we 
elected not to take the land voyage was due to the 



148 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

early spring season, with its snows on the shoulder of 
Parnassus, around which the path winds. For those 
less hindered by the season, it is said that the journey 
overland from Livadia to Delphi, passing through 
the tiny hamlet of Arakhova and possibly spending 
a night in the open air on Parnassus, is well worth 
the trouble, and justifies the expense of a courier and 
horses, both of which are necessary. 

The way which we chose, besides being infinitely 
easier, is far from being devoid of its interesting fea- 
tures. We set sail in the early afternoon from the Pi- 
raeus, passing over a glassy sea by Psyttalea, and the 
famous waters in front of Salamis, to Corinth, where 
the canal proved sufficiently wide to let our little craft 
steam through to the gulf beyond. It was in the gath- 
ering dusk that we entered this unusual channel, but 
still it was light enough to see the entire length of the 
canal, along the deep sides of which electric lamps 
glimmered few and faint as a rather ineffectual illumi- 
nant of the tow-path on either hand. The walls towered 
above, something like two hundred feet in spots, and 
never very low, making this four-mile ribbon of water 
between the narrow seas a gloomy cavern indeed. It 
was wide enough for only one craft of the size of our 
own, therein resembling the land highway to Delphi ; 
but fortunately, owing to the system of semaphore 
signals, no CEdipus disputed the road with us, and we 



DELPHI 149 

shot swiftly through the channel, between its towering 
walls of rock, under the spidery railroad bridge that 
spans it near the Corinth end, and out into the gulf 
beyond. It is rather a nice job of steering, this passage 
of the canal. Everybody was ordered off the bow, three 
men stood nervously at the wheel, and the jack staff 
was kept centred on the bright line that distantly 
marked the opening between the precipitous sides of 
the cleft, a line of light that gradually widened, reveal- 
ing another sea and a different land as we drew near 
and looked out of our straight and narrow path of 
water into the Corinthian Gulf beyond. The magnifi- 
cence of the prospect would be hard indeed to exag- 
gerate. On either side of the narrow gulf rose billowy 
mountains, the northern line of summits dominated by 
the snowy dome of Parnassus, the southern by Cyllene, 
likewise covered with white. They were ghostly in 
the darkness, which the moon relieved only a little, 
shining fitfully from an overcast sky. The Corinthian 
Gulf is fine enough from the railway which skirts it 
all the way to Patras, but it is finer far from the sea, 
whence one sees both sides at once in all the glory of 
their steep gray mountains. Happily the night was 
calm, and the gulf, which can be as bad as the English 
Channel at its worst, was smooth for once as we swung 
away from the little harbor of modern Corinth and laid 
our course for the capes off Itea, something like forty 



I50 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

miles away. And thus we went to rest, the steamer 
plowing steadily on through the night with Parnassus 
towering on the starboard quarter. 

A vigorous blowing of the whistle roused the ship's 
company at dawn. The vessel was at anchor off Itea, 
a starveling village not at all praised by those who 
have been forced to sample its meagre accommoda- 
tions for a night. Fortunately it is no longer necessary 
to rely on these, for one may drive to Delphi in a few 
hours, and on a moonlight night the ride, while chilly, 
is said to be most delightful. Arriving as we did at 
early dawn, we were deprived of this experience, and 
set out from the village at once on landing to cover the 
nine miles to Kastri, some riding in carriages or spring 
carts, — locally called "sustas," — some on mules, 
and others proceeding on foot. From afar we could 
already see the village, perched high on the side of the 
foothills of Parnassus, which rise abruptly some three 
miles away across a level plain. The plain proved to 
be delightful. Walled in on either hand by rocky cliffs, 
its whole bottom was filled with olive trees, through 
which vast grove the road wound leisurely along. 
Brooks babbled by through the grass of the great 
orchard, and the green of the herbage was spangled 
with innumerable anemones and other wild-flowers in 
a profusion of color. Far behind us in the background 
towered the Peloponnesian mountains, and before rose 



DELPHI 151 

the forbidding cliffs that shut in Delphi. Above the 
distant Kastri, there was always the lofty summit of 
Parnassus, somewhat dwarfed by proximity and there- 
fore a trifle disappointing to one whose preconceived 
notions of that classic mountain demanded splendid 
isolation, but still impressive. 

Naturally on this long, level plain the carriages soon 
passed us, and disappeared in the hills ahead, while 
the footpath left the highway and plunged off boldly 
into the olive grove in the general direction of Delphi. 
When it attained the base of the sharp ascent of the 
mountain-side, it went straight up, leaving the road to 
find its more gradual way by zigzags and detours, — 
windings so long that it soon developed that the car- 
riages which so long ago had distanced us were in turn 
displaced and were later seen toiling up the steep be- 
hind us 1 The prospect rearward was increasingly lovely 
as we climbed and looked down upon the plain. It 
resembled nothing so much as a sea of verdure, the 
olive trees pouring into it from the uplands like a 
river, and filling it from bank to bank. No wonder 
this plain was deemed a ground worth fighting for by 
the ancients. 

Despite the fact that the snows of Parnassus were 
apparently so near, the climb was warm. The rocky 
hillside gave back the heat of the April sun, although 
it was cloudy, and progress became necessarily slow, 



152 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

in part because of the warmth and in larger part be- 
cause of the increasing splendor of the view. The path 
bore always easterly into a narrow gorge between two 
massive mountains, a gorge that narrowed and nar- 
rowed as the climb proceeded. Before very long we 
passed through a wayside hamlet that lies halfway up 
the road, exchanged greetings with the inhabitants, 
who proved a friendly people anxious to set us right 
on the way to Delphi, and speedily emerged from the 
nest of buildings on the path again, with Kastri always 
ahead and above, and seemingly as distant as ever. It 
was Palm Sunday, we discovered, and the populace of 
the tiny village all bore sprigs of greenery, which they 
pressed upon us and which later turned out to be more 
political than religious in their significance, since it was 
not only the day of the Lord's triumphal entry but the 
closing day of the general elections as well. 

Admiration for the green and fertile valley far be- 
hind now gave place to awe at the grim gorges before 
and the beetling cliffs towering overhead, up through 
which, like dark chimney flues, ran deep clefts in the 
rock, gloomy and mysterious, and doubtless potent in 
producing awe in the ancient mind by thus adding 
to the impressiveness of god-haunted Delphi. On the 
left the mountain rose abruptly and loftily to the 
blue ; on the right the cliff descended sharply from 
the path to the dark depths of the ravine, while close 



DELPHI 153 

on its other side rose again a neighboring mountain 
that inclosed this ever-narrowing gulch. 

At last after a three-hour scramble over the rocks 
we attained Kastri, and found it a poor town lined 
with hovels, but, like Mount Zion, beautiful for situa- 
tion. A brawling brook, fed by a spring above, dashed 
across the single street and lost itself in the depths of 
the ravine below. On either hand towered the steep 
sides of the surrounding cliffs, while before us the val- 
ley wound around a shoulder of the mountain and 
seemingly closed completely. Kastri did not always 
occupy this site, but once stood farther along around 
the mountain's sharp corner, directly over the ancient 
shrine itself ; and it was necessary for the French ex- 
cavators who laid bare the ancient sites to have the 
village moved bodily by force and arms before any 
work could be done, — a task that was accomplished 
with no little difficulty, but which, when completed, 
enabled the exploration of what was once the most 
famous of all Pagan religious shrines. Curiously 
enough the restoration of the temples at Delphi fell 
to the hands of the French, the descendants of those 
very Gauls who, centuries before, had laid waste the 
shrines and treasuries of Loxias. We stopped long 
enough at Vasili's to sample some " mastika," — a 
native liqueur resembling anisette, very refreshing on 
a warm day, — and then walked on to the ruins which 



154 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

lie some few minutes' walk farther around the shoul- 
der of the mountain. 

Nothing could well be more impressive than the 
prospect that opened out as we came down to the 
famous site itself. No outlet of the great vale was to 
be seen from this point, for the gorge winds about 
among the crags which rise high above and drop far 
below to the base of the rocky glen. Human habita- 
tion there is none. Kastri was now out of sight behind. 
On the roadside and in the more gradual slopes of the 
ravine below one might find olive trees, and here and 
there a plane. Beyond, through the mysterious wind- 
ings of the defile runs the road to Arakhova. It was 
on this spot that Apollo had his most famous shrine, 
the abode of his accredited priestesses gifted with pro- 
phecy; and no fitter habitation for the oracle could 
have been found by the worshipers of old time than 
this gloomy mountain glen where nature conspires 
with herself to overawe mankind by her grandeur. 

The legend has it that Apollo, born as all the world 
knows in far-off Delos, transferred his chief seat to 
Delphi just after his feat of slaying the Python. He is 
said to have followed that exploit by leaping into the 
sea, where he assumed the form of a huge dolphin 
(delphis), and in this guise he directed the course of 
a passing Cretan ship to the landing place at Itea, or 
Crissa. There, suddenly resuming his proper shape of 



DELPHI 155 

a beautiful youth he led the wondering crew of the 
vessel up from the shore to the present site of Delphi, 
proclaimed himself the god, and persuaded the sailors 
to remain there, build a temple and become his priests, 
calling the spot " Delphi." Tradition also asks us to 
believe that there then existed on the spot a cavern, 
from which issued vapors having a peculiar effect on 
the human mind, producing in those who breathed 
them a stupor in which the victim raved, uttering 
words which were supposed to be prophetic. Over this 
cave, if it existed, the temple was erected ; and therein 
the priestess, seated on a tripod where she might in- 
hale the vapors, gave out her answers to suppliants, 
which answers the corps of priests later rendered into 
hexameter verses having the semblance of sense, but 
generally so ambiguous as to admit of more than one 
interpretation. All sorts of tales are told of the effect 
of the mephitic gas on the pythoness — how she would 
writhe in uncontrollable fury, how her hair would rise 
on her head as she poured forth her unintelligible gib- 
berish, and so forth ; stories well calculated to impress 
a credulous race " much given to religion" as St. Paul 
so sagely observed. If there ever was any such cavern 
at all, it has disappeared, possibly filled with the debris 
of the ruins or closed by earthquake. Perhaps there 
never was any cave at all. In any event the wonders 
of the Delphic oracle were undoubtedly explicable, 



156 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

as such phenomena nearly always are, by perfectly 
natural facts. It has been pointed out that the corps 
of priests, visited continually as they were by people 
from all parts of the ancient world, were probably the 
best informed set of men on earth, and the sum total 
of their knowledge thus gleaned so far surpassed that 
of the ordinary mortal and so far exceeded the average 
comprehension that what was perfectly natural was 
easily made to appear miraculous. To the already awed 
suppliant, predisposed to belief and impressed by the 
wonderful natural surroundings of the place, it was 
not hard to pass off this world-wide information as in- 
spired truth. Nor was it a long step from this, especially 
for clever men such as the priests seem to have been, 
to begin forecasting future events by basing shrewd 
guesses on data already in hand — these guesses being 
received with full faith by the worshiper as god-given 
prophecy. As an added safeguard the priests often 
handed down their predictions in ambiguous form, as, 
for example, in the famous answer sent to Croesus, 
when he asked if he should venture an expedition 
against Cyrus — "If Croesus shall attack Cyrus, he 
will destroy a great empire." Such answers were of 
course agreeable to the suppliant, for they admitted 
of flattering interpretation ; and it was only after trial 
that Croesus discovered that the " great empire " he 
was fated to destroy was his own. At other times the 




THE VALE 



DELPHI 157 

guesses, not in ambiguous form, went sadly astray — 
as in the case where the Pythian, after balancing prob- 
abilities and doubtless assuming that the gods were 
always on the side of the heaviest battalions, advised 
the Athenians not to hope to conquer the invading 
Persians. This erroneous estimate was the natural one 
for informed persons to make, — and it is highly prob- 
able that it was influenced in part by presents from 
the Persian king, for such corruption of the oracle was 
by no means unknown. In fact it led to the ultimate 
discrediting of the oracle, and it was not long before 
the shrine ceased to be revered as a fountain of good 
advice. Nevertheless for many hundred years it was 
held in unparalleled veneration by the whole ancient 
world. Pilgrims came and went. Cities and states 
maintained rich treasuries there, on which was founded 
a considerable banking system. Games in honor of 
Pythian Apollo were celebrated in the stadium which 
is still to be seen high up on the mountain-side above 
the extensive ruins of the sacred precinct. Temple 
after temple arose about the great main shrine of the 
god. Even distant Cnidus erected a treasury, and 
victorious powers set up trophy after trophy there for 
battles won by land or sea — the politeness of the 
time preventing the mention of any Hellenic victim 
by name. 

All these remains have been patiently uncovered 



158 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

and laboriously identified and labeled, with the assist- 
ance of the voluminous writings of that patron saint 
of travelers, Pausanias. The work was done under the 
direction of the erudite French school, and the visitor 
of to-day, provided with the plan in his guide-book 
and aided by the numerous guide-posts erected on 
the spot, will find his way about with much ease. One 
of the buildings, the " treasury of the Athenians," a 
small structure about the size of the Nike Apteros 
temple, is being " restored " by the excavators, but 
with rather doubtful success. Aside from this one in- 
stance, the ruins are mainly reconstructible only in the 
imagination from the visible ground-plans and from 
the fragments lying all about. In the museum close by, 
however, some fractional restorations indoors serve 
to give a very excellent idea of the appearance of at 
least two of the ancient buildings. 

Space and the intended scope of this narrative alike 
forbid anything like a detailed discussion of the nu- 
merous ruins that line the zigzag course of the old 
" sacred way." The visitor, thanks to the ability of 
the French school, is left in no doubt as to the identity 
of the buildings, and the wayfaring man, though no 
archaeologist, need not err. One may remark in pass- 
ing, however, the curious polygonal wall of curved 
stones still standing along a portion of the way and 
still bearing the remnant of a colonnade, with an in- 



DELPHI 159 

scription indicating that once a trophy was set up here 
by the Athenians, — possibly the beaks of conquered 
ships. Of course the centre and soul of the whole pre- 
cinct was the great temple of Apollo, now absolutely 
flat in ruins, but once a grand edifice indeed. The 
Alcmaeonidae, who had the contract for building it, 
surprised and delighted everybody by building better 
than the terms of their agreement demanded, provid- 
ing marble ends for the temple and pedimental adorn- 
ment as well, when the letter of the contract would 
have been satisfied with native stone. Thus shrewdly 
did a family that w^as in temporary disfavor at Athens 
win its way back to esteem ! 

However easy it may be to explain with some 
plausibility the ordinary feats of the oracle at Delphi 
as accomplished by purely natural means, there was 
an occasional tour de force that even to-day would 
pass for miraculous — supposing that there be any 
truth in the stories as originally told. The most 
notable instance was one in which Croesus figured. 
That wealthy monarch was extremely partial to or- 
acles, and generally consulted them before any con- 
siderable undertaking. On the occasion in question 
he contemplated an expedition against Cyrus — the 
same which he eventually undertook because of the 
enigmatic answer before referred to — and made ex- 
traordinary preparations to see that the advice given 



i6o GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

him was trustworthy. For Croesus, with all his cre- 
dulity, was inclined to be canny, and proposed to test 
the powers of the more famous oracular shrines by 
a little experiment. So he sent different persons, ac- 
cording to Herodotus, to the various oracles in 
Greece and even in Libya, "some to Phocis, some to 
Dodona, others to Amphiaraus and Trophonius, and 
others to Branchidse of Milesia, and still others to 
Ammon in Libya. He sent them in different ways, 
desiring to make trial of what the oracle knew, in 
order that, if they should be found to know the truth, 
he might send a second time to inquire whether he 
should venture to make war on the Persians. He laid 
upon them the following orders : That, computing the 
days from the time of their departure from Sardis, 
they should consult the oracles on the hundredth 
day by asking what Crcesus, the son of Alyattes, was 
then doing. They were to bring back the answer in 
writing. Now what the answers were that were given 
by the other oracles is mentioned by none; but no 
sooner had the Lydian ambassadors entered the 
temple at Delphi and asked the question than the 
Pythian spoke thus, in hexameter verse : * I know 
the number of the sands and the measure of the sea ; 
I understand the dumb and hear him that does not 
speak ; the savor of the hard-shelled tortoise boiled 
in brass with the flesh of lambs strikes on my senses ; 



DELPHI i6i 

brass is laid beneath it and brass is put over it.' Now 
of all the answers opened by Croesus none pleased him 
but only this. And when he had heard the answer from 
Delphi he adored it and approved it, and was con- 
vinced that the pythoness of Delphi was a real oracle 
because she alone had interpreted what he had done. 
For when he sent out his messengers to the several 
oracles, watching for the appointed day, he had re- 
course to the following contrivance, having thought 
of what it was impossible to discover or guess at. He 
cut up a tortoise and a lamb and boiled them him- 
self together in a brazen caldron, and laid over it a 
cover of brass." ^ 

Thus, on one occasion, the oracle is supposed to 
have performed a feat of what we should now set 
down as telepathy, and which, if it really happened, 
would be explicable in no other way. It sufficed to 
establish Delphi as a shrine to be revered, in the mind 
of Crcesus, and to propitiate the god he sent mag- 
nificent gifts. And as these may serve to give some 
idea of the vast riches of the spot in bygone ages, it 
may be well to relate here what Croesus is supposed 
to have sent. Herodotus relates that he made a pro- 
digious sacrifice, in the flames of which he melted 
down an incredible amount of gold and silver. " Out 
of the metal thus melted down he cast half-bricks, of 

1 Herodotus, Book I, sections 46-48. 



i62 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

which the longest was six palms in length, the short- 
est three ; and in thickness, each was one palm. 
Their number was one hundred and seventeen. Four 
of these, of pure gold, weighed each two talents 
and a half. The other bricks, of pale gold, weighed 
two talents each. He made also the figure of a lion, 
of fine gold, weighing ten talents. This lion, when 
the temple at Delphi was burned down, fell from its 
pedestal of half-bricks, for it was placed upon them. 
It now lies in the treasury of the Corinthians, weigh- 
ing only six talents and a half, — for three talents and 
a half were melted from it in the fire. Crcesus, hav- 
ing finished these things, sent them to Delphi, and 
with them the following : two large bowls, one of gold 
and one of silver. The golden one was placed on the 
right as one enters the temple, and that of silver 
on the left ; but they were removed when the temple 
was burning, and the gold bowl was set in the 
treasury of the Clazomense ; while the silver one, 
which contains six hundred amphorae, lies in a cor- 
ner of the Propylaea, and is used for mixing wine on 
the Theophanian festival. The Delians said it was the 
work of Theodorus the Samian, which was probably 
true, for it was no common work. He sent also four 
casks of silver, which also stand in the Corinthian 
treasury; and he dedicated two lustral vases, one 
of gold and the other of silver. The Spartans claim 



DELPHI 163 

that the golden one was their offering, for it bears an 
inscription, * From the Lacedaemonians ; ' but this 
is wrong, for Croesus gave it. He sent many other 
offerings, among them some round silver covers, and 
also a golden statue of a woman, three cubits high, 
which the Delphians say is the image of Crcesus's 
baking-woman. And to all these things he added 
the necklaces and girdles of his wife." ' 

Such is the account given by Herodotus of the 
gifts bestowed by the king regarded as the richest of 
all the ancient monarchs. In return for his gifts he 
got the answer that " if Croesus shall make war on 
the Persians he will destroy a mighty empire," Croe- 
sus was so delighted at this that he sent more gifts, 
"giving to each of the inhabitants of Delphi two 
staters of gold." A further question as to how long 
he was destined to rule elicited the response, " When 
a mule shall become king of the Medes, then, tender- 
footed Lydian, flee over the pebbly Hermus ; nor de- 
lay, nor blush to be a coward." There is even less of 
apparent enigma about that statement ; yet never- 
theless Croesus lived to see the day when a man, 
whom he deemed a " mule," did become ruler of the 
Medes, and he likewise saw his own mighty empire 
destroyed. The case of Croesus is typical in many 
ways of the attitude of the ancients toward the oracle, 

* Herodotus, Book I, sections 50-51. 



i64 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

— their belief in it as inspired, and their frequent 
attempts to predispose it to favor by gifts of great 
magnificence. Not everybody could give such offer- 
ings as Croesus, to be sure. But the presents piled 
up in the buildings of the sacred precinct must have 
been of enormous value, and the contemplation of 
them somewhat overpowering. By the way, recent 
estimates have been published showing that the 
wealth of Croesus, measured by our modern stand- 
ards, would total only about $11,000,000. 

Doubtless the awe felt for the spot sufficed in the 
main to protect the treasures from theft. When 
Xerxes came into Greece and approached the shrine, 
the inhabitants proposed that the valuables be buried 
in the earth. Phoebus, speaking through the priest- 
ess, forbade this, however, saying that "he was able 
to protect his own." And, in fact, he proved to be so, 
for the approaching host were awed by the sight 
of the sacred arms of the god, moved apparently 
by superhuman means from their armory within the 
temple to the steps outside. And moreover while 
the invaders were approaching along the vale below, 
where the temple of Athena Pronoia still stands, a 
storm broke, and two great crags were dashed from 
the overhanging cliffs above, killing some and de- 
moralizing the rest. A war shout was heard from the 
temple of Athena, and the Delians, taking heart at 



DELPHI 165 

these prodigies, swept down from the hills and de- 
stroyed many of the fleeing Medes. 

The most successful attempt to prejudice and cor- 
rupt the oracle seems to have been that of the Alc- 
maeonidae, who have been referred to as the builders 
of the great temple after its destruction by fire. They 
had been driven out of Athens by the Pisistratidae, 
and during their exile they contracted with the Am- 
phictyons to rebuild the great shrine of Apollo, That 
they imported Parian marble for the front of the edi- 
fice when the contract would have been amply satis- 
fied with Poros stone seems to have been less a dis- 
interested act than an effort to win the favor of the 
god. The Athenians long maintained that the build- 
ers still further persuaded the oracle by gifts of 
money to urge upon the Spartans the liberation of 
Athens from the tyrants ; and in the end the Pisis- 
tratidae were driven out, in obedience to this man- 
date, while the Alcmaeonidae came back in triumph, 
as had been their design from the first. 

It was rather a relief at last to turn from the be- 
wildering array of ruins to the museum itself. It is not 
large, but it contains some wonderfully interesting 
things, and chief of all, no doubt, the bronze figure of 
the charioteer. I cannot bring myself to believe that 
he surpasses the bronze " ephebus " at Athens, whom 
he instantly recalls both from the material and from 



i66 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the treatment of the eyes ; but he is wonderful, never- 
theless, as he stands slightly leaning backward as one 
might in the act of driving, the remnants of a rein still 
visible in one hand. His self-possession and rather 
aristocratic mien have often been remarked, and a 
careful examination will reveal what is doubtless the 
most curious thing about the whole statue — namely, 
the little fringe of eye-lashes, which those who cast the 
image allowed to protrude around the inlaid eye-ball. 
They might easily be overlooked by a casual observer, 
but their effect is to add a subtle something that gives 
the unusual naturalness to the eyes. One other statue, 
a marble replica of an original bronze by Lysippus, 
deserves a word of comment also, because it is held by 
good authorities to be a better example of the school 
of Lysippus than the far better known " Apoxyome- 
nos " in the Braccio Nuovo at Rome. Each of the fig- 
ures is the work of a pupil of Lysippus, but the claim 
is made that the copy of a youth at Delphi was doubt- 
less made by a pupil working under the master's own 
supervision, while the Apoxyomenos was carved after 
Lysippus had died. From this it is natural enough to 
infer that the Delphi example is a more faithful repro- 
duction than the Vatican's familiar figure. In this 
museum also is a carved stone which is known as the 
" omphalos," because of its having marked the sup- 
posed navel of the earth. The legend is that Zeus 




CHARIOTEER — DELPHI 



DELPHI 167 

once let fly two eagles from opposite sides of the world, 
bidding them fly toward one another with equal wing. 
They met at Delphi, which therefore shares this form 
of celebrity with Dodona in Epirus. 

Of course we visited the Castalian spring, which 
still gushes forth from a cleft in the rock, as it did in 
the days when suppliants came thither first of all to 
purify themselves. After a long journey one is not 
loath to rest beside this ancient fount after washing 
and drinking deep of its unfailing supply, for the water 
is good and the chance to drink fresh water in Greece 
is rare enough to be embraced wherever met. The 
cleft from which the spring emerges is truly wonderful. 
It is narrow and dark enough for a colossal chimney, 
running far back into the bowels of the mountain 
heights behind. An old stone trough hewn out of the 
side of the cliff was once filled by this spring, but the 
flow has now been diverted and it runs off in a bab- 
bling stream over the pebbles. Not the least inspiring 
thing at Delphi is to stand here and reflect, as one en- 
joys the Castalian water, how many of the great in by- 
gone ages stood on this very spot and listened to the 
same murmur of this brook which goes on forever. 

Hard by the spring, under two great plane trees that 
we fondly believed were direct descendants of those 
planted on the spot by Agamemnon, we sat down to 
lunch, a stone khan across the way affording shelter 



i68 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

and fire for our coffee. And in the afternoon we ram- 
bled among the ruins below on the grassy slopes of 
the lower glen, where are to be seen a ruined gym- 
nasium, a temple of Athena Pronoia, and a fascinating 
circular "tholos," all of which, though sadly shattered, 
still present much beauty of detail. If the site were 
devoid of every ruined temple it would still be well 
worth a visit, not merely from the importance it once 
enjoyed as Apollo's chief sanctuary, but also for the 
grandeur and impressiveness of its setting, so typical 
of Greece at her best. Fortunate indeed are those 
who may tarry here awhile, now that local lodging 
has been robbed of its ancient hardships. To-day, 
as in the days of the priests, Delphi is in touch with 
the uttermost parts of the earth by means of the tele- 
graph, the incongruous wires of which accompany 
the climber all the way from Itea, so that details of 
arrival, departure, or stay may be arranged readily 
enough from afar. Long sojourn, however, was not 
to be our portion, and we were forced to depart, 
though with reluctant steps, down along the rough 
side of the mountain, through the vast and silent olive 
groves, back into the world of men, to sordid Itea 
and our ship. 



CHAPTER IX. MYCENvE AND THE 
PLAIN OF ARGOS 




WE journeyed down to Mycenae from Athens 
by train. The moment the railroad leaves 
Corinth it branches southward into the Peloponne- 
sus and into a country which, for legendary interest, 
has few equals in the world. Old Corinth herself, mo- 
ther of colonies, might claim a preeminent interest 
from the purely historical point of view, but she must 
forever subordinate herself to the half-mythical charm 
that surrounds ruined and desolate Mycenae, the fa- 
mous capital of Atreus and his two celebrated sons, 
Menelaus and Agamemnon. As for Corinth herself, 
the ancient site has lately been explored under the 
auspices of the American school at Athens, and these 
excavations, with the steep climb to the isolated and 
lofty Acrocorinth, furnish the attractions of the place 
to-day. The train runs fairly close to the mountain, 
so that even from the car window the fortifications 
on its top may be distinguished ; but evidently they 



lyo GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

are Venetian battlements rather than old Greek re- 
mains that are thus visible. As a purely natural phe- 
nomenon the Acrocorinth is immensely impressive, 
resembling not a little the Messenian AcropoHs at 
Ithome. It is a precipitous rock, high enough to de- 
serve the name of a mountain, and sufficiently iso- 
lated to be a conspicuous feature of the landscape for 
miles as you approach Corinth from the sea or from 
Athens by train. Circumstances have never permitted 
us to ascend it, but the view from the summit over 
the tumbling surface of the mountainous Peloponne- 
sus is said to be indescribably fine, giving the same 
effect as that produced by a relief map, while the 
prospect northward across the Gulf of Corinth is of 
course no less magnificent. 

Fate ordained that we should stick to the line of 
the railway and proceed directly to the site of Myce- 
nae, in which interest had been whetted by the re- 
markable display of Mycenaean relics in the museum 
at Athens, as well as by the consciousness that we 
were about to visit the home of the conqueror of Troy 
and of his murderous queen. The train did some 
steep climbing as it rounded the shoulder of the 
Acrocorinth, and for two hours or so it was a steady 
up-grade, winding around long valleys in spacious 
curves, the old road from Sparta generally visible 
below. At every station the mail car threw off bun- 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 171 

dies of newspapers, which the crowds gathered on 
the platform instantly snatched and purchased with 
avidity. The love of news is by no means confined to 
Athenians, but has spread to their countrymen ; and 
every morning the same scene is enacted at every 
railroad station in Hellas on the arrival of the Athens 
train. At every stop the air was vocal with demands 
for this or that morning daily, and each, having se- 
cured the journal of his choice, retired precipitately 
to the shade of a near-by tree, while those who could 
not read gathered near and heard the news of the 
world retailed by the more learned, at second-hand. 
The peasant costumes were most interesting, for we 
were now in the country of the shepherds, far from 
the madding crowd and dressed for work. The dress 
of each was substantially the same, — a heavy capote 
of wool, if it was at all chilly, the tight drawers gar- 
tered below the knee, the heavy leather wallet on the 
front of the belt, the curious tufted shoes whose pom- 
pons at the toe, if large denoted newly bought gear, 
or if sheared small meant that the footwear was old. 
For the custom is to cut down these odd bits of 
adornment as they become frayed, a process that is 
repeated until the tuft is entirely removed, when it is 
time to buy new shoes. 

The landscape was most striking now. The plains 
were small and separated from one another by walls of 



172 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

rugged hills, whose barriers were not to be despised 
in days when communication was primitive and slow, 
and which bore an important part in keeping the sev- 
eral ancient states so long apart, instead of allowing 
them permanently to unite. The neighboring peaks 
began to be increasingly redolent of mythology, 
chiefly relating to various heroic exploits of Herakles. 
Indeed the train stopped at Nemea itself, and the site 
of the struggle with the Nemean lion was indicated 
to us from afar, while a distant summit was said to be 
near the lake where were slain the Stymphalian birds. 
Shortly beyond the grade began to drop sharply, un- 
til, rushing through a pass of incredible narrowness, 
— the site of a bloody modern battle between the 
Greek patriots and the Turks, — the train dashed out 
into the broad plain of Argos, once famous as the 
breeder of horses. The narrow and rather sterile val- 
leys hemmed in by bare hills of gray rock gave place 
to this immense level tract of sandy soil leading down 
to the sea, which gleamed in the distance under the 
noonday sun. On either side of the broad expanse of 
plain towered the mountain wall, always gray and 
bare of trees, though in the old days it was doubtless 
well wooded. With the departure of trees came the 
drouth, and to-day the rivers of the Argolid are mere 
sandy channels, devoid of water save in the season 
of the melting mountain snows. 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 173 

The train halted at Phychtia, the station for My- 
cenae, and there we found waiting a respectable car- 
riage that had seen better days in some city, but 
which was now relegated to the task of conveying 
the curious to various points in the Argolic plain. 
It was there in response to the inevitable telegraph, 
which we had the forethought to employ. Otherwise 
we should have had to go over to the site of My- 
cenae on foot, a task which the heat of the day rather 
than the distance would have made arduous. Mycenae 
to-day is absolutely deserted and desolate, lying per- 
haps two miles eastward from the railway, on the 
spurs of two imposing mountain peaks. Toward this 
point the road rises steadily, and before long we had 
passed through a starveling village of peasant huts 
and came suddenly upon a two-story structure bear- 
ing the portentous sign, " Grand Hotel of Helen and 
Menelaus ! " To outward view it was in keeping with 
the rest of the hamlet, which was chiefly remarkable 
for its children and dogs. It proved, on closer in- 
spection, to be a queer little inn, boasting a few sleep- 
ing rooms in its upper story, to be reached only by 
an outside stairway. On the ground floor — which 
was a ground floor in the most literal sense of that 
overworked expression — was a broad room, used 
partly as a dining-room and partly as a store and 
office. The actual eating-place was separated from 



174 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the remainder of the apartment by a grill-work of 
laths, or pickets, with a wicket gate, through which 
not only the guests and the proprietor, but sundry 
dogs, chickens, and cats passed from the main hall 
to the table. This, being the only available hotel in 
the region, and bearing so resounding and sonorous 
a title, proved irresistible. Lunch, consisting of very 
excellent broiled chickens, and sundry modest con- 
comitants, was promptly served by a tall slip of a 
girl, the daughter of the house, and probably named 
Helen, too. During the meal various hens, perhaps 
the ancestors of our pieces de resistance, clucked con- 
tentedly in and out, and a mournful hound sneaked 
repeatedly through the gate, only to be as repeatedly 
thrust into the outer darkness of the office by the 
cook and waitress. In former times, before the "Grand 
Hotel of Helen and Menelaus " sprang into being, 
it was necessary to carry one's food and eat it under 
the shadow of the famous Lion Gate on the site of 
the old town itself — a place replete with thrills. 
Nevertheless it seems well" that the vicinity now has 
a place of public entertainment, and doubly well that 
it has been so sonorously named. 

It may not have been more than half a mile farther 
to the ruins, but it was up hill and very warm work 
reaching them. On either side of the high road, where 
presumably once lay the real every-day city of My- 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 175 

cense, there was little in the way of remains to be seen, 
save for the remarkable avenue leading to the sub- 
terranean tomb, or treasury, of which it will be best 
to speak somewhat later. The slopes were covered 
with grass, and here and there a trace of very old 
" Cyclopean " masonry was all that remained to bear 
witness to the previous existence of a city wall, or 
possibly an ancient highway with a primitive arch- 
bridge spanning a gully. Back over the plain the view 
was expansive. The several strongholds of Agamem- 
non's kingdom were all in sight, — Mycenae, Nauplia, 
Argos, and Tiryns, — at the corners of the great plain, 
which one might ride all around in a day ; so that 
from his chief stronghold on the height at Mycenae 
Agamemnon might well claim to be monarch of all he 
surveyed. Behind the valley, the twin peaks at whose 
base the stronghold lay rose abruptly, bearing no trace 
of the forests of oak that once covered them ; and on 
a rocky foothill stood the acropolis of the city, admir- 
ably fitted by nature for defense. It was on this high 
ground that the ruins were found, and the visitor is 
informed that this was the citadel rather than the 
main town — the place to which the beleaguered in- 
habitants might flock for safety in time of war, and 
in which Atreus and his line had their palace. It was 
here that Dr. Schliemann conducted his remarkable 
researches, of which we shall have much to say. It is 



176 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

a remarkable fact that the events of the past twenty- 
years or so have given a most astonishing insight into 
the dimness of the so-called "heroic" age — the age 
that long after was sung by Homer — so that it is 
actually possible now to say that we know more of 
the daily life and conditions of the time of Troy's 
besiegers than we do of the time of Homer himself, 
and more about the heroes than about those who sang 
their exploits. Knowledge of the more remote periods 
seems to vary directly with the distance. The dark 
ages, as has been sagely remarked, were too dark 
altogether to admit men to read the story told by the 
ancient monuments such as survived at Mycenae, and 
it is only lately that light has increased sufficiently 
to enable them to be understood with such clear- 
ness that the dead past has suddenly seemed to live 
again. From the remains at Mycenae the savants 
have unearthed the houses, walls, palaces, reservoirs, 
ornaments, weapons, and daily utensils of the pre- 
Homeric age. Bones and other relics cast aside in 
rubbish heaps give an idea of the daily food of the 
people. The tombs have revealed how they were 
buried at death, and have yielded a wealth of gold 
ornaments showing a marvelous skill in working 
metals. 

This upper city of Mycenae was built on a rock, which 
we soon discovered to be separated from the rest of 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 177 

the mountain by ravines, leaving the sides very steep 
and smooth, so that on nearly every hand the place 
was inaccessible. The gorges toward the mountains 
were natural moats, and wide enough to prevent 
assault or even the effective hurling of missiles from 
above into the citadel. The stronghold, however, was 
vastly strengthened by artificial construction and 
proved to be walled entirely about, the fortress being 
especially strong on the more exposed portions, and 
most especially at the main gate, where the enormous 
blocks of stone and the tremendous thickness of the 
wall were most in evidence. The road winds up the last 
steep ascent until it becomes a mere narrow driveway, 
scarcely wide enough for more than a single chariot, 
and right ahead appears suddenly the famed Lion 
Gate, flanked on one hand by a formidable wall facing 
the side of the native rock, and on the other by a pro- 
jecting bastion of almost incredible thickness. The 
stones are of remarkable size, hewn to a sort of rough 
regularity by the Cyclopean builders, and the wonder 
is that, in so rude and primitive an age, men were able 
to handle such great blocks with such skill. No won- 
der the tale gained currency that it was the work of 
the Cyclopes, imported from abroad — and indeed 
the tale is not without its abiding plausibility, since 
there are evidences enough in scattered Phoenician 
sites elsewhere to warrant the assumption that the 



1 78 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

builders of these numerous fortresses in Argolis did 
come from over seas. 

Of all the ruins at Mycenae the " gate of the lions " 
is unquestionably the most impressive. It spans the 
end of the long and narrow vestibule between the walls 
of rock, its jambs made of huge upright stones that 
even to-day show the slots cut for hinges and the deep 
holes into which were shot the ancient bolts. Over the 
top is another massive single stone, forming the lintel. 
It is a peculiarity of the Cyclopean doorways at My- 
cenae that the weight on the centre of the lintel is 
almost invariably lightened by leaving a triangular 
aperture in the stonework above, and in the main gate 
the immense blocks of the wall were so disposed as to 
leave such an opening. Even the massive lintel of this 
broad gate would probably have failed to support the 
pressure of the walls had not some such expedient 
been devised. As it is, the light stone slab that was 
used to fill the triangular opening is still in place, and 
it is what gives the name to the gateway, from the 
rudely sculptured lions that grace it. These two lions, 
minus their heads, are sitting facing each other — 
'* heraldically opposed," as the phrase is — each with 
his fore feet resting on the base of an altar bearing a 
sculptured column, which marks the centre of the slab. 
The column is represented as larger at the top than 
at the base, a peculiarity of the stone columns of the 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 179 

Mycenaean age, and recalling the fact that the first 
stone pillars were faithful copies of the sharpened 
stakes that had been used as supports in a still earlier 
day. The missing heads of the lions were doubtless 
of metal, — bronze, perhaps, — and were placed so as 
to seem to be gazing down the road. They are gone, 
nobody knows whither. It used to be stated that this 
quaint bas-relief was the "oldest sculpture in Europe," 
but this is another of the comfortable delusions that 
modern science has destroyed. Nobody, however, can 
deny that the Gate of the Lions is vastly impressive, or 
that it is so old that we may, without serious error, 
feel that we are looking on something that Agamem- 
non himself perhaps saw over his shoulder as he set 
out for Troy. Just inside the gate we found a narrow 
opening in the stones, leading to a sort of subterranean 
chamber, presumably for the sentry. The impression 
produced by the gate and its massive flanking walls 
is that of absolute impregnability, and it was easy 
enough to fancy the Argive javelin-men thronging the 
bastion above and pouring death and destruction 
down upon the exposed right hands of the invaders 
jammed tight in the constricted vestibule below. 

Inside the gate, the old market-place opens out, and 
it was here that were discovered the tombs from which 
came the numerous relics seen at Athens. The market 
place is still encircled by a curious elliptical structure. 



i8o GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

which is in effect a double ring of flat stones, with slabs 
laid flat across the top, forming what looks like a sort 
of oval bench all around the inclosure. We were asked 
to believe that these actually were seats to be occupied 
by the old men and councilors of the city ; but if that 
is the truth, there were indeed giants in the land in 
those times. Other authorities conjecture that it was 
a retaining wall for a sort of mound heaped up over 
the graves within — an hypothesis which it seems 
almost as hard to adopt. Whatever the purpose of 
this remarkable circle of stone slabs, it is hardly to 
be doubted that it did once inclose an "agora," and 
it was within this space that Schliemann sunk his 
shafts and brought up so much that was wonderful 
from the tombs below. Tombs in so central a spot, 
and filled with such a plethora of gold, certainly might 
well be deemed to have been the last resting-place of 
royalty, and it is agreeable to believe that they were 
sovereigns of the Agamemnonian line, if the " prince 
of men" himself be not one of them. It is the fashion to 
aver that Schliemann was too ready to jump at con- 
clusions prompted by his own fond hopes and pre- 
conceived ideas, and to make little of his claim that 
he had unearthed the grave of the famous warrior 
who overcame Priam's city ; and perhaps this is 
justified. But one cannot forget that the old legend 
insisted that Atreus, Agamemnon, Cassandra, Electra, 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS i8i 

Eurymedon, and several others were buried in the 
market place of Mycenae, — which was doubtless what 
prompted the excavation at this point ; excavations 
which moreover proved to be so prolific of royal re- 
ward. 

On the heights above, where it was far too steep for 
chariots to follow, there is a pathway direct to the 
royal palace itself, which it will doubtless do no harm 
to call Agamemnon's. Of course it is practically flat 
to-day, with little more than traces of the foundation, 
save for a bit of pavement here and there, or a frag- 
ment of wall on which possibly one may detect a 
faint surviving touch of fresco. All around the cit- 
adel below are traces of other habitations, so con- 
gested as to preclude any application of Homer's epi- 
thet, "Mycenae of the broad streets," to this particular 
section of the city. All around the summit ran the 
wall, even at points where it would seem no wall was 
necessary. As we explored the site the guide kept 
gathering handfuls of herbage that grew all about, 
and speedily led us to a curious Cyclopean "arch," 
made by allowing two sloping stones to fall toward 
each other at the top of an approaching row of wall- 
blocks, which it developed was the entrance to a 
subterranean gallery that led down to the reservoir 
of the fort. It was a dark and tortuous place, and its 
descent to the bowels of the hill was quite abrupt, so 



i82 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

that we did not venture very far, but allowed the 
guide to creep gingerly down until he was far below ; 
whereupon he set fire to the grasses he had been 
accumulating and lighted up this interior gallery for 
us. The walls of this passageway had been polished 
smooth for centuries by passing goats which had 
rubbed against the stone, and it gleamed and glit- 
tered in the firelight, revealing a long tunnel leading 
downward and out of sight to a cavern far below, 
where was once stored the water supply conveyed 
thither from a spring north of the citadel. Stones 
cast down the tunnel reverberated for a long distance 
along its slippery floor, and at last apparently came 
against a final obstacle with a crash. Then came the 
upward rush of smoke from the impromptu torch, 
and we were forced hastily to scramble out into the 
open air. We returned later, however, for a passing 
shower swept down from the mountains and threat- 
ened a drenching, which rendered the shelter of the 
ancient aqueduct welcome indeed. It was soon over, 
however, and afforded us a chance to sit on the top- 
most rock of the acropolis, looking down over what 
was once the most important of the Greek kingdoms, 
from the mountains on the north and west down to 
the sea — a pleasing sight, which was cut short only 
by the reflection that we had still to visit the so-called 
** treasury of Atreus" beside the road below. 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 183 

This is one more of the odd structures of the place 
over which controversy has raged long and fiercely, 
the problem being whether or not it was a tomb. There 
are a number of these underground chambers near 
by, but the most celebrated one just mentioned is the 
common type and is completely excavated so that it 
is easily to be explored. The approach is by a long 
cut in the hillside, walled on both sides with well-hewn 
stone, the avenue terminating only when a sufficient 
depth had been reached to excavate a lofty subter- 
ranean chamber. A tall and narrow door stands at 
the end of this curious lane, placed against the hill, its 
lintel made of a noticeably massive fiat stone, with 
the inevitable triangular opening over it ; but in this 
case the block which presumably once closed it is 
gone, and nobody knows whether it, like its mate 
at the main gateway, bore sculptured lions or not. 
Within, the tomb is shaped like an old-fashioned straw 
beehive, lined throughout with stone, which bears 
marks indicating that it in turn was once faced 
with bronze plates. It is a huge place, in which the 
voice echoes strangely, and it is lighted only from the 
door and its triangular opening above. Just off the 
northern side is a smaller chamber, where light is only 
to be had by lighting some more of the dry grasses 
gathered without. Those who adhere to the idea that 
this was a tomb maintain that the real sepulchre was 



i84 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

in the smaller adjoining chamber. Respectable au- 
thority exists, however, for saying that these cham- 
bers were not tombs at all, but treasuries, and a vast 
amount of controversial literature exists on the subject, 
over which one may pore at his leisure if he desires. 
If it was a tomb, it is obvious from the other burial- 
place discovered on the acropolis above that there 
must have been at least two different styles of burial, 
— and the tombs above appear to have contained 
people of consequence, such as might be expected to 
have as honorable and imposing sepulchres as there 
were. No bones were found in the " treasury of 
Atreus," and plenty of bones were found elsewhere, a 
fact which might seem significant and indeed conclu- 
sive if it were not known that bones had been found 
in beehive tombs like this elsewhere in Greece, notably 
near Menidi, where six skeletons were discovered in 
a similar structure. Of course it might be true that 
the bodies found on the heights at Mycenae and taken 
to Athens belonged to an entirely different epoch from 
those that were buried in the beehive tombs, and that 
the beehive tombs might easily have been looted long 
before the existence of any such booty as the market- 
place graves yielded had even been suspected. The 
layman is therefore left to suit himself, whether he will 
call this underground chamber a tomb or a treasury, 
and devote his time to admiring the ingenuity with 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 185 

which the stone Hning of the place was built, each tier 
of stone slightly projecting above its lower fellow so 
as at last to converge at the top in a point. The per- 
fection of this subterranean treasure-house seems no 
less remarkable than the ease with which the ancient 
builders managed large masses of rock. 

As for the history of Mycenae, its greatest celebrity 
is unquestionably that which it achieved in the time 
of the Atreidai, when it was the home of the kings of 
Argos. It is supposable that in the palace on the height 
Clytaemnestra spent the ten years of her lord's absence 
at Troy, and that therein she murdered him on his re- 
turn. The poets have woven a great web of song and 
story about the place, largely imaginative and legend- 
ary, to be sure. But the revelations of the later excava- 
tions have revealed that the poets came exceedingly 
close to fact in their descriptions of material things. 
The benches before the doors, the weapons and shields 
of heroes, the cups, — such as Nestor used, for example, 
— all these find their counterparts in the recently dis- 
covered actualities and give the more color to the 
events that the ancient writers describe. That Myce- 
nae was practically abandoned soon after her great 
eminence doubtless accounts for the wealth of relics 
that the excavators found, and her low estate during 
the centuries of neglect curiously but not unnaturally 
insured her return to celebrity, with a vast volume 



i86 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of most interesting testimony to her former greatness 
quite unimpaired. 

From Mycenae down to the Argive Heraeum, the 
ancient temple of Hera which was once the chief 
shrine of this region, is something like two miles ; 
but as it was over a rough ground, and as time failed 
us, it was found necessary to eliminate this, which to a 
strenuous archaeologist might doubtless prove highly 
interesting as an excursion, and more especially so 
to Americans, since it was a site explored by the 
American school. It lies oS on the hills that border 
the plain of Argos on the east, on the direct line 
between Mycenae and Nauplia. Our own road led 
us back to Phychtia again and down the centre of 
the plain over a very good carriage road, passing 
through broad fields of waving grain, in the midst 
of which, breast deep, stood occasional horses con- 
tentedly munching without restraint. Almost the only 
buildings were isolated stone windmills, some still 
in use and others dismantled. At last the road 
plunged down a bank and into the sandy bed of 
what was doubtless at some time of year a river, — 
but at this season, and probably most of the year as 
well, a mere broad fiat expanse of sand as destitute of 
water as the most arid part of Sahara. The railroad, 
which had borne us friendly company for a few miles, 
was provided with an iron bridge, spanning this 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 187 

broad desert with as much gravity as if it were a 
raging torrent, which doubtless it sometimes is. Just 
beyond we rattled into Argos. 

Argos is a rather large place, but decidedly unat- 
tractive save for its many little gardens. Nearly every 
house had them, and from our high seats in the re- 
spectable but superannuated depot carriage we were 
able to look into the depths of many such, to marvel 
at their riot of roses and greenery. As for the houses, 
they were little and not over-clean. The populace, 
however, was exceeding friendly, sitting e7t masse 
along the highway, the young women blithely salut- 
ing and the children bombarding us with nosegays 
in the hope of lepta. Over Argos towers a steep hill, 
known as a "larisa" or acropolis, from the top of 
which we could imagine a wonderful view over the 
whole kingdom of the Argives and over the moun- 
tains as well, not to mention the Gulf of Nauplia ; but 
as time was speeding on toward the dusk and we 
were still far from Nauplia, we had to be content 
with the imagination alone, and with the news that 
a little monastery about halfway up the hillside had 
been set on fire on the Easter Sunday previous by 
too enthusiastic celebrants, who had been over-free 
with the inevitable rockets and Roman candles. Also 
we had to give short shrift to the vast theatre, hewn 
out of the solid rock at the foot of the larisa, and said 



i88 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

to be one of the largest in Greece. It was sadly grass- 
grown, however, and infinitely less attractive than 
the smallest at Athens, not to mention the splendid 
playhouse at Epidaurus, which we promised our- 
selves for the morrow. So we were not reluctant to 
swing away from old Argos, with her shouting vil- 
lagers and high-walled gardens, and to skirt the 
harbor, now close at hand along the dusty Nauplia 
road. Across the dancing waters lay Nauplia herself, 
a white patch at the foot of a prodigious cliff far 
around the bay. By the roadside the country seaward 
was marshy, while inland rolled the great plain back 
to the gray hills which showed the northern bounds 
of the old kingdom, and the lofty rock of Mycenae 
from which the sons of Atreus had looked down over 
their broad acres. 

It was not long before we were aware that " well- 
walled " Tiryns was at hand and that we were not to 
close a day already well marked by memories of Cy- 
clopean masonry without adding thereto the most stu- 
pendous of all, the memory of the great stones piled 
up in prehistoric ages at this ancient palace whose 
size impressed even that hardened sight-seer Pausa- 
nias. Tiryns proved to be a highly interesting place ; 
in general appearance much like Mycenae, but in de- 
tail sufficiently different to keep us exclaiming. It lies 
on what is little more than an isolated hillock beside 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 189 

the highroad, and there is nothing imposing about its 
height or length. It is a long, low rock, devoid of any 
building save for the solid retaining walls that may go 
back to the days of Herakles himself. 

Whoever built the fortress at Tiryns had seen fit to 
make the front door face the plain rather than the 
sea ; so that it was necessary to leave the road and go 
around to the north side of the rock, where a gradual 
incline afforded an easy approach to a sort of ramp, 
or terrace, defended by walls of the most astonish- 
ing Cyclopean construction. It has been stated that 
these great and rudely squared blocks of native rock, 
taken from the quarries in the hills northward, were 
once bonded together with a rude clay mortar, which 
has since entirely disappeared. How such enormous 
blocks were quarried in those primitive days, or how 
they were handled, is a good deal of a mystery. But 
it is claimed that swelled wedges of wet wood were 
used to separate the stones from their native bed. 

As a ruin, Tiryns is rather difficult to reconstruct in 
the imagination from the visible remains. The inclined 
ramp and the gateway, remains of which are still 
standing, are interesting, but chiefly from the remark- 
able size of the stones employed in their construction. 
Within, the old palace is in a state of complete and 
comprehensive ruin. The lines of the former palace 
walls may, however, be seen on the rocky floor, with 



iQO GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

here and there a trace of an ancient column which has 
left its mark on the foundation rock. The outer and 
inner courts, megaron, men's and women's apart- 
ments, and even the remnants of a "bathroom " are 
to be made out, the last-named bearing testimony to 
the fact that even in the remote Mycenaean age the dis- 
position of waste water was carefully looked to — per- 
haps more carefully than was the case with the later 
Greeks. The Tirynthian feature which eclipses every- 
thing else for interest, however, is the arrangement of 
covered galleries of stone on two sides of the palace, 
from which at intervals radiate side chambers sup- 
posed to have been used for storage. To-day they re- 
call rather more the casements of our own old-fash- 
ioned forts. In these galleries the rude foreshadowings 
of the arch principle are even more clearly to be seen 
than in the underground conduit at Mycenae which 
leads to the sunken reservoir. The sides of the corri- 
dor are vertical for only a short distance, and speed- 
ily begin to slope inward, meeting in an acute angle 
overhead. The side chambers are of a similar con- 
struction. Nowhere does it appear that the "Cy- 
clopes," if we may call them such, recognized the 
principle of the keystone, although they seem to have 
come very close to it by accident here and there, and 
notably so in the case of the little postern gate which 
is to be seen on the side of the citadel toward the 



MYCEN^ AND THE PLAIN OF ARGOS 191 

modern highroad. As for the galleries, at the present 
day they are polished to a glassy smoothness within 
by the rubbing of sheltering flocks of sheep and goats. 
And they are interesting, not only because of the 
massive stones used in building them, but because 
the similarity of these corridors and storage chambers 
to the arrangements found near old Carthage and 
other Phoenician sites may well argue a common pa- 
ternity of architecture, and thus give color to the tale 
that the ancient kings of Argos secured artisans of 
marvelous skill and strength from abroad. The im- 
mense size of the roughly hewn rocks easily enough 
begot the tradition that these alien builders were men 
of gigantic stature, called " Cyclopes " from the name 
of their king, Cyclops, and supposed to be a race of 
Thracian giants ; quite distinct, of course, from the 
other mythological Cyclopes who served Hephaistos, 
or the Sicilian ones who made life a burden for Odys- 
seus on his wanderings. It seems to be a plausible 
opinion now widely held that the foreign masons who 
erected the Cyclopean walls in the Argolid were not 
from Thrace, but from the southern shores of the 
yEgean — perhaps from Lycia. And it is interesting 
to know that there are examples of the same sort of 
stone work, bearing a similar name, to be found as 
far away as Peru. 

A somewhat lower hillock just west of the main 



192 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

acropolis — if it deserves that name — is shown as 
once being the servants' quarters. And we descended, 
as is the common practice, from the main ruin to 
the road, by a rude stone stairway at what was for- 
merly the back of the castle, to the narrow postern, the 
stones of which form an almost perfect, but doubtless 
quite accidental, archway ; and thence to our carriage, 
which speedily whirled us away to Nauplia. The road 
thither lay around a placid bay, sweeping in a broad 
curve through a landscape which was happily marked 
by some very creditable trees. Nauplia herself made 
a pleasant picture to the approaching eye, lying on 
her well-protected harbor at the base of an imposing 
cliff, on the top of which the frowning battlements of 
an old Venetian fortress proclaimed the presence of 
the modern state prison of Greece. The evening sun 
brought out the whiteness of the city against the for- 
bidding rock behind, while far away westward across 
the land-locked bay the evening light touched with a 
rosy glow the snowy summit of Cyllene, and brought 
out the rugged skyline of the less lofty Peloponnesian 
mountains. And it was these that lay before us as our 
carriage rattled out of a narrow street and upon the 
broad esplanade of the quay at the doors of our hotel. 



CHAPTER X. NAUPLIA AND 
EPIDAURUS 




WE were awakened in the morning by an unac- 
customed sound, — a subdued, rapid, rhythmic 
cadence coming up from the esplanade below, accom- 
panied by the monotonous undertone of a voice say- 
ing something in time with the shuffle of marching 
feet, the whole punctuated now and then by a word 
of command and less frequently by the unmistakable 
clang of arms. The soldiers from the fortress were 
having their morning drill. The words of command 
sounded strangely natural, although presumably in 
Greek, doubtless because military men the world over 
fall into the habit of uttering " commands of execu- 
tion " in a sort of unintelligible grunt. The counting 
of " fours " sounded natural, too, despite the more 
marked Hellenism of the numbers. So far from being 
a disturbance, the muffled tread of the troops was 
rather soporific, which is fortunate, because I have 
been in Nauplia on several occasions, and this early 



194 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

drill appears to be the regular thing under the win- 
dows of the H6tel des Etrangers. 

The fine open space along the water front makes 
a tempting parade-ground, and at other hours an 
attractive place for general assemblage, especially at 
evening, when the people of Nauplia are to be seen 
lounging along the wharves or drinking their coffee 
in the shade under the white line of buildings. The 
quay curves for a long distance around the bay, and 
alongside it are moored many of those curious hollow 
schooners that do the coastwise carrying in Greece. 
Nauplia appears still to be something of a port, al- 
though infinitely smaller and less busy than either the 
Piraeus or Patras. Her name, of course, is redolent 
of the sea. The beauty of her situation has often 
reminded visitors of Naples, but it is only a faint 
resemblance to the Italian city. In size she is little 
indeed. Scenically, however, her prospects are mag- 
nificent, with their inclusion of a panorama of distant 
and imposing peaks towering far away across the in- 
ner bay, so admirably sheltered from the outer seas 
by the massive promontory, on the inner shelf of 
which the city stands. The town is forced to be nar- 
row because of the little space between the water and 
the great cliff rising precipitously behind. There is 
room for little more than three parallel streets, and in 
consequence Nauplia is forced to make up in length 



NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS 195 

what she lacks in breadth, and strings along eastward 
in a dwindling line of buildings to the point where 
the marshy shore curves around toward Tiryns, or 
loses herself in the barren country that lies in the gray 
valleys that lead inland to Epidaurus. 

From the windows of the hotel the most conspicu- 
ous object in the middle distance was a picturesque 
islet in the midst of the bay, almost entirely covered 
by a yellow fort of diminutive size and Venetian ap- 
pearance — the home of an interesting functionary, 
though a gruesome one ; to wit, the national execu- 
tioner. For Nauplia at the present day is above all 
else the Sing-Sing of Hellas, — the site of the national 
prison, where are confined the principal criminals of 
the kingdom, and more especially those who are under 
sentence of death. The medieval fortifications on the 
summit behind the town have been converted to the 
base uses of a jail, and are locally known as the Pal- 
amide. ,We did not make the ascent to the prison, 
although it cannot be a hard climb, but contented 
ourselves with purchasing the small wares that are 
vended by street dealers in the lower town, — strings 
of " conversation beads," odd knives, and such like 
things, which you are assured were made by " brig- 
ands" confined in the prison above. Somehow a string 
of beads made by a Greek " brigand " seems a pos- 
session to be coveted. 



196 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

" M. de Nauplia," if that is the proper way of re- 
ferring to the headsman, is a criminal himself. He is 
generally, and probably always, one who has been 
convicted of murder, but who has accepted the post 
of executioner as the price of escaping the extreme 
penalty of the law. It is no small price to pay, for 
while it saves the neck of the victim it means virtual 
exile during the term of the service, and aversion of 
all good people forever. We were told that the ex- 
ecutioner at the time was a man who had indulged in a 
perfect carnival of homicide — so much so that in al- 
most any other country he would have been deemed 
violently and irreclaimably insane and would have 
escaped death by confinement in an asylum. But not 
so he. Instead he was sentenced to a richly deserved 
beheading by the guillotine, and the penalty was only 
commuted by his agreement to assume the unwel- 
come task of dispatching others of his kind — an 
office carrying with it virtual solitary imprisonment 
for a term variously stated as from five to eight years, 
and coupled with lasting odium. For all those years 
he must live on the executioner's island, unattended 
save by the corporal's guard of soldiers from the fort, 
which guard is changed every day or two, lest the 
men be contaminated or corrupted into conniving at 
the prisoner's escape. Others told us that the term 
of his sanguinary employ was as long as twenty-five 



NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS 197 

years, but this was far greater than the average story 
set as his limit. On Hberation, it is said to be the 
ordinary practice for these unhappy men to go abroad 
and seek spots where their condition is unknown. On 
days when death sentences are to be executed the 
headsman is conveyed with solemn military pomp to 
the Palamide prison above the city, and there in the 
prison yard the guillotine is found set up and wait- 
ing for the hand that releases its death-dealing knife. 
Whether or not the executioner is paid a stated pit- 
tance in any event, or whether, as we were told by 
some, he was paid so much " per head," we never 
found out. Meantime the executioner's island unde- 
niably proves one of the features of Nauplia, quaint 
to see, and shrouded with a sort of awesome mystery. 
The narrow streets of Nauplia furnished diversion 
for a short time. They proved to be fairly clean, and 
the morning hours revealed a picturesque array of 
barbaric colored blankets and rugs hung out of the 
upper balconies to air. In one street a dense throng 
about an open door drew attention to the morning 
session of the municipal court. The men roaming the 
streets were mainly in European dress, although here 
and there a peasant from the suburbs displayed his 
quaint capote and pomponed shoes. It was one of 
these native-garbed gentry who approached us with 
a grin and stated in excellent English, that sorted 



198 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

strangely with his Hellenic clothes, that he was once 
employed in an electric light plant in Cincinnati. Did 
he like it ? Oh, yes ! In fact, he was quite ready to go 
back there, where pay was better than in Nauplia. 
And with an expressive shrug and comprehensive 
gesture that took in the whole broad sweep of the 
ancient kingdom of the Atreidai, he added, " Argos is 
broke ; no good ! " One other such deserves men- 
tion, perhaps; one who broke in on a reverential 
reverie one day, as we were contemplating a Greek 
dance in a classic neighborhood, with some English 
that savored of the Bowery brand, informing us that 
he had been in America and had traveled all over 
that land of plenty in the peregrinations of Barnum's 
circus, adding as a most convincing passport to our 
friendship, "I was wit' old man Barnum w'en he 
died." Greeks who speak English are plentiful in the 
Peloponnesus, and even those who make no other 
pretensions to knowledge of the tongue are proud of 
being able to say " all right " in response to labored 
efforts at pidgin Greek. 

It did not take long to exhaust the interest of the 
city of Nauplia itself, including a survey of the mas- 
sive walls that survive from the Middle Ages. And it 
was fortunate, too, because we had planned to spend 
the day at Epidaurus, which lies eighteen miles or 
so away, and was to be reached only by a long and 




WOMAN SPINNING ON ROAD TO EPIDAURUS 



NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS 199 

arduous ride in a carriage — the same highly respect- 
able old landau in which we had ridden the length of 
Agamemnon's kingdom the day before. Owing to 
the grade and the considerable solidity of our party 
a third horse was in some miraculous way attached 
by ropes to the carriage, the lunch was loaded in the 
hood forward, and we rattled away through the nar- 
row streets toward the open country east of the town 
— a country that we soon discovered to be made up 
of narrow valleys winding among gray and treeless 
hills, whose height increased steadily as the highway 
wound along. It was a good highway — the distances 
being marked in "stadia," as the Greek classically 
terms his kilometres, and the stadium posts constantly 
reminding us that this was an ** Odos Ethnike," or 
national road. But we missed sadly the large trees 
that are to be seen in the close neighborhood of the 
city as we jogged out on the dusty road in the heat 
of the increasing April day. 

The grade, while not steep, was mainly upward 
through the long valleys, making the journey a mat- 
ter of more than three hours under the most favorable 
of conditions ; and the general sameness of the scenery 
made it a rather monotonous drive. Of human habi- 
tation there was almost none, for although here and 
there one might find a vineyard, the greater part of 
the adjacent land is little more than rocky pasture. It 



200 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

soon developed, however, that the modern Greek 
shepherd is not afraid to play his pipes at noonday 
through any fear of exciting the wrath or jealousy of 
Pan, as was once the case ; for from the mountain- 
sides and from under the scanty shade of isolated 
olive trees we kept hearing the plaintive wailing of 
the pipes, faint and far away, where some tender of 
the flocks was beguiling the time in music. This dis- 
tant piping is indescribable. The tone is hardly to be 
called shrill, for it is so only in the sense that its pitch 
is high like the ordinary human whistling ; in quality 
it is a soft note, apparently following no particular 
tune but wavering up and down, and generally end- 
ing in a minor wail that soon grows pleasant to hear. 
Besides, it recalls the idyls of Theocritus, and the pas- 
torals and bucolics take on a new meaning to any- 
body who has heard the music of the shepherd lads 
of Greece. Nothing would do but we must buy pipes 
and learn to play upon them ; so a zealous inquiry 
was instituted among the wayfaring men we met, with 
a view to securing the same. It was not on this day, 
however, but on the next that we finally succeeded 
in buying what certainly looked like pipes, but which 
turned out to be delusions and snares so far as music 
was concerned. They were straight wooden tubes, in 
which holes had been burned out at regular inter- 
vals to form " stops " for varying the tone. No reed 



NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS 201 

was inserted in them, and if they were to be played 
upon at all it must be by reason of a most accom- 
plished "lip." We derived considerable amusement 
from them, however, by attempting to reproduce on 
them the mellifluous whistling- of the natives ; but 
the nearest approach to awakening any sound at all 
which any of our party achieved was so lugubriously 
melancholy that he was solemnly enjoined and com- 
manded never to try it again, on pain of being turned 
over to ** M. de Nauplia" as the only fitting punish- 
ment. Later we found that the flute-like notes that 
we heard floating down over the vales from invisible 
shepherds came from a very different sort of wind 
instrument — a reed pipe of bamboo not unlike the 
American boy's willow whistle, with six or seven 
stops bored out of the tube. 

The wayfarers were decidedly the most interesting 
sights on the Epidaurus road. Several stadia out of 
Nauplia a stalwart man came striding down a hill 
from his flocks and took the road to town. He was 
dressed in the peasant garb, and across his shoulders 
he bore a yoke, from either end of which depended 
large yellow sacks containing freshly made cheese, 
the moisture draining through the meshes of the cloth 
as he walked along to market. These cheeses we had 
met with in the little markets at Athens and found 
not unpleasant, once one grows accustomed to the 



202 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

goat's milk flavor and the " freshness ; " although it 
is probable that a taste for Greek cheese, like that for 
the resinated wine, is an acquired one. 

Groups of shepherds were encountered now and 
then, especially at the few points along the way where 
buildings and shade were to be found. They were all 
picturesque in their country dress, but more especially 
the women, who spin flax as they walk and who prob- 
ably ply a trade as old as Hellenic civilization itself 
in about the same general way that their most remote 
ancestors plied it. These little knots of peasants read- 
ily enough posed for the camera, and were contented 
with a penny apiece for drink-money. Not the least 
curious feature of these peasant herdsmen was the 
type of crook carried — not the large, curved crook 
that the ordinary preconceived ideal pictures, but 
straight sticks with a queer little narrow quirk in the 
end, with which the shepherd catches the agile and 
elusive goat or lamb by the hind leg and thus holds 
it until he is able to seize the animal in some more 
suitable part. These herdsmen proved hospitable 
folk, ready enough with offers of milk fresh from the 
herd, which is esteemed a delicacy by them, whatever 
it might have seemed to our uneducated palates. 

Perhaps halfway out to Epidaurus one passes an- 
other remnant of the most remote time — a lofty 
fortification on a deserted hill. It is of polygonal 



NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS 203 

masonry — that is, of angular stones fitted together 
without mortar, instead of being squared after the 
manner of the Cyclopes. Hard by, spanning a ravine 
which has been worn by centuries of winter torrents, 
there was a Cyclopean bridge, made of huge rocks 
so arranged as to form an enduring arch, and on this 
once ran no doubt the great highway from Epidaurus 
to the plain of Argos, 

It was long after the noontide hour when the gray 
theatre of Epidaurus, a mere splash of stone in the 
distant side of a green hill, came in sight, lying a mile 
or so away across a level field, in which lay scattered 
the remnants of what was once the most celebrated 
hospital in the world. For Epidaurus boasted herself 
to be the birthplace of JEsculapius, — or, as we are on 
Greek soil, Asklepios, — and held his memory in deep 
reverence forever after by erecting on the site a vast 
establishment such as to-day we might call a "sani- 
tarium." After the heat and dust of the ride it was 
pleasant to stretch out in the shade of the scanty local 
trees, on the fragrant grass of the rising ground near 
the theatre, and look back down the long valley, with 
its distant blue mountains framed in a vista of mas- 
sive gray hills. The nearer ones were impressive in 
their height, but absolutely denuded of vegetation, 
like the hills around Attica ; and it was these moun- 
tains that formed the sole scenery for the background 



204 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of plays produced in the great theatre close by. The 
theatre, of course, is the great and central attraction 
at Epidaurus to-day, for it is in splendid preserva- 
tion while all else is a confusing mass of flat ruins. 
No ancient theatre is better preserved, or can surpass 
this one for general grace of lines or perfection of 
acoustic properties. Many were doubtless larger, but 
among all the old Greek theatres Epidaurus best pre- 
serves to the modern eye the playhouse of the an- 
cients, circular orchestra and all. The acoustics any- 
body may test easily enough. We disposed ourselves 
over the theatre in various positions, high and low, 
along the half-a-hundred tiers of seats, and listened 
to an oration dealing with the points of interest in the 
theatre's construction delivered in a very ordinary 
tone, from the centre of the orchestra, but audible in 
the remotest tier. 

The circle of the orchestra is not paved, as had 
been the case with the theatres seen at Athens, but is 
a green lawn, in the centre of which a stone dot re- 
veals the site of the ancient altar. It was stated that 
the circle is not actually as perfect as it looks, being 
shorter in one set of radii by something like two feet. 
But to all appearance it is absolutely round, and is 
easily the most beautiful type of the circular orchestra 
in existence to-day, if indeed it is not the only perfect 
one. The immense amphitheatre surrounding it was 



NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS 205 

evidently largely a natural one, which a little artificial 
stonework easily made complete ; and it is so perfect 
to-day that a very little labor would make it entirely 
possible to give a play there now before a vast audi- 
ence. Some such plan was actually talked of a few 
years ago, but abandoned, — no doubt, because of the 
apparent difficulty of getting any very considerable 
company of auditors to the spot, or of housing them 
while there. It would be necessary, also, to rebuild 
the proskenion, the foundations of which are still to 
be seen behind the orchestra, and one may tremble 
to think of what might happen in the process should 
the advocates of the stage theory and their opponents 
fail to agree better than they have hitherto done. 

From the inspection of the theatre and the enjoy- 
ment of the view across the plain to the rugged hills 
our dragoman called us to lunch, which was spread 
in a little rustic pergola below. He had thoughtfully 
provided fresh mullets, caught that morning ofT the 
Nauplia quay, and had cooked them in the little house 
occupied by the local custode. Hunger, however, was 
far less a matter of concern than thirst. We had been 
warned not to drink of the waters of the sacred well 
of Asklepios in the field below, and as there was no 
spring vouched for with that certitude that had at- 
tended the waters of Castalia, we were thrown back, 
as usual, on the bottled product of the island of An- 



2o6 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

dros — a water which is not only intrinsically pure 
and excellent, but well worth the price of admission 
from the quaint English on its label. In rendering 
their panegyric on the springs of Andros into the 
English tongue, the translators have declared that it 
" is the equal of its superior mineral waters of Eu- 
rope." 

The sacred well of the god, however, proved later 
in the day that it had not lost all its virtues even un- 
der the assaults of the modern germ theory ; for while 
we were wandering through the maze of ruins in the 
strong heat of the early afternoon one of our company 
was decidedly inconvenienced by an ordinary " nose- 
bleed" — which prompt applications of the water, 
drawn up in an incongruous tin pail, instantly stopped. 
And thus did we add what is probably the latest cure, 
and the only one for some centuries, worked by the 
once celebrated institution patronized by the native 
divinity. It is related that the god was born on the 
hillside just east of the meadow, but this story is sadly 
in conflict with other traditions. It seems that As- 
klepios was not originally a divinity, but a mere hu- 
man, as he seems to be in the Homeric poems. His 
deification came later, as not infrequently happened 
in ancient times, and with it came a network of 
legends ascribing a godlike paternity to him and as- 
signing no less a sire than Apollo. Indeed, it is stated 




THEATRE AT EPIDAURUS 



NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS 207 

by some authorities that the worship of Asklepios did 
not originate in Epidaurus at all, but in Thessaly ; and 
that the cult was a transplanted one in its chief site 
in the Peloponnesus, brought there by Thessalian 
adventurers. 

All over the meadow below the great theatre are 
scattered the remains of the ancient establishment. 
The ceremony of healing at Epidaurus seems to have 
been in large part a faith-cure arrangement, although 
not entirely so ; for there is reason to believe that, as 
at Delphi, there was more or less natural common 
sense employed in the miracle-working, and that the 
priests of the healing art actually acquired not a little 
primitive skill in medicine. It was a skill, however, 
which was attended by more or less mummery and 
circumstance, useful for impressing the mind of the 
patient ; but this is not even to-day entirely absent 
from the practice of medicine with its " placebos " and 
"therapeutic suggestion" elements. The custom of 
sending the patient to rest in a loggia with others, 
where he might expect a nocturnal visitation of the 
god himself, has been referred to in these pages before, 
and survives even to-day in the island of Tenos at the 
eve of the Annunciation. The tales of marvelous cures 
at Epidaurus were doubtless as common and as well 
authenticated as the similar modern stories at Lourdes 
and Ste. Anne de Beaupre. 



2o8 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

In addition to the actual apartments devoted to the 
sleeping patients, which were but a small part of the 
sanitarium's equipment, there was the inevitable great 
temple of the god himself, — a large gymnasium sug- 
gestive of the faith the doctors placed in bodily ex- 
ercise as a remedy, and a large building said to be 
the first example of a hospital ward, beside numerous 
incidental buildings devoted to lodgment. Satirical 
commentators have called attention to the presence 
of shrines to the honor of Aphrodite and Dionysus as 
bearing enduring witness to the part that devotion to 
those divinities seems to have been thought to bear 
in afflicting the human race. The presence of the 
magnificent theatre and the existence of a commo- 
dious stadium testify that life at Epidaurus was not 
without its diversions to relieve the tedium of the med- 
ical treatment. And in its day it must have been a 
large and beautiful agglomeration of buildings. To- 
day it is as much of a maze as the ruins at Delphi or 
at Olympia. The non-archaeological visitor will prob- 
ably find his greatest interest in the theatre and in 
the curious circular "tholos" — a remarkable build- 
ing, the purpose of which is not clear, made of a num- 
ber of concentric rings of stone which once bore col- 
onnades. It stands in the midst of the great precinct, 
and in its ruined state it resembles nothing so much 
as the once celebrated " pigs-in-clover " puzzle. In the 



NAUPLIA AND EPIDAURUS 209 

little museum on the knoll above, a very successful 
attempt has been made to give an idea of this beauti- 
ful temple by a partial restoration. Being indoors, it 
can give no idea either of the diameter or height of 
the original ; but the inclusion of fragments of archi- 
trave and columns serve to convey an impression of 
the general beauty of the structure, as we had seen to 
be the case with similar fractional restorations at Del- 
phi. The extensive ruins in the precinct itself do not 
lend themselves to non-technical description. They 
are almost entirely flat, and the ground plans serve 
to identify most of the buildings, without giving any 
very good idea of their appearance when complete. 
Pavements still remain intact in some of the rooms, 
and altar bases and exedral seats lie all about in ap- 
parent confusion. Nevertheless the discoveries have 
been plotted and identified with practical complete- 
ness, and it is easy enough with the aid of the plans 
to pass through the precinct and get a very good idea 
of the manifold buildings which once went to make 
up what must have been a populous and attractive 
resort for the sick. Whatever may be thought of the 
religious aspects of the worship of Asklepios, it is 
evident that the regimen prescribed by the cult 
at Epidaurus, with its regard for pure mountain air 
and healthful bodily exercise, not to mention welcome 
diversion and amusement for the mind, was furthered 



2IO GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

by ample facilities in the way of equipment of this 
world-famous hospital. 

When we were there the Greek School of Archae- 
ology was engaged in digging near the great temple 
of the god, the foundations of which have now been 
completely explored to a considerable depth, and it 
was interesting to see the primitive way in which the 
excavation was being carried on. Men with curiously 
shaped picks and shovels were loosening the earth 
and tossing it into baskets of wicker stuff, which in 
turn were borne on the heads of women to a distance 
and there dumped. It was slow work, and apparently 
nothing very exciting was discovered. Certainly no- 
thing was unearthed while we were watching this 
laborious toil. 



CHAPTER XL IN ARCADIA 




WITH the benison of the landlord, who promised 
to send our luncheon over to the station " in 
a little boy," we departed from Nauplia on a train 
toward noontime, headed for the interior of the Pelo- 
ponnesus by way of Arcadia. The journey that we 
had mapped out for ourselves was somewhat ofi the 
beaten path, and it is not improbable that it always 
will be so, at least for those travelers who insist on 
railway lines and hotels as conditions precedent to an 
inland voyage, and who prefer to avoid the primitive 
towns and the small comforts of peasants' houses. 
Indeed our own feelings verged on the apprehensive 
at the time, although when it was all over we won- 
dered not a little at the fact. Our plan was to leave 
the line of the railway, which now entirely encircles 
the Peloponnesus, at a point about midway in the 
eastern side, and to strike boldly across the middle 
of the Peloponnesus to the western coast at Olympia, 
visiting on the way the towns of Megalopolis and 



212 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Andhritsaena, and the temple at Bassae. This meant 
a long day's ride in a carriage and two days of horse- 
back riding over mountain trails ; and as none of us, 
including the two ladies, was accustomed to eques- 
trian exercises, the apprehensions that attended our 
departure from the Nauplia station were perhaps not 
unnatural. 

It had been necessary to secure the services of a 
dragoman for the trip, as none of us spoke more than 
Greek enough to get eggs and such common neces- 
saries of life, and we knew absolutely nothing of the 
country into the heart of which we were about to 
venture. The dragoman on such a trip takes entire 
charge of you. Your one duty is to provide the costs. 
He attends to everything else — wires ahead for car- 
riages, secures horses, guides, and muleteers, provides 
all the food, hotel accommodation, tips, railway tick- 
ets, and even afternoon tea. This comprehensive ser- 
vice is to be secured at the stated sum of ten dol- 
lars a day per person, and in our case it included 
not only the above things, but beds and bedding and 
our own private and especial cook. To those accus- 
tomed to traveling in luxury, ten dollars a day does 
not seem a high traveling average. To those like our- 
selves accustomed to seeing the world on a daily ex- 
penditure of something like half that sum, it is likely 
to seem at first a trifle extravagant. However, let it be 



IN ARCADIA 213 

added with all becoming haste, it is the only way to 
see the interior of Greece with any comfort at all, and 
the comfort which it does enable is easily worth the 
cost that it entails. 

From the moment we left Nauplia we were devoid 
of any care whatever. We placed ourselves unreserv- 
edly in the keeping of an accomplished young Athe- 
nian bearing the name of Spyros Apostolis, who came 
to us well recommended by those we had known in 
the city, and who contracted to furnish us with every 
reasonable comfort and transportation as hereinbe- 
fore set forth, and also to supply all the mythology, 
archaeology, geography, history, and so forth that we 
should happen to require. For Spyros, as we learned 
to call him, was versed not only in various languages, 
including a very excellent brand of English, but 
boasted not a little technical archaeological lore and 
a command of ancient history that came in very aptly 
in traversing famous ground. It came to pass in a 
very few days that we regarded Spyros in the light 
of an old friend, and appealed to him as the supreme 
arbiter of every conceivable question, from that of 
proper wearing apparel to the name of a distant peak. 

It was in the comfortable knowledge that for the 
next few days we had absolutely no bargaining to do 
and that for the present Spyros, who was somewhere 
in the train, had first-class tickets for our transporta- 



214 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

tion, that we settled back on the cushions and watched 
the receding landscape and the diminishing bulk of 
the Nauplia cliffs. The train religiously stopped at the 
station of Tiryns — think of a station provided for a 
deserted acropolis ! — and then jogged comfortably 
along to Argos, where we were to change cars. It 
was here that we bought our shepherd pipes ; and we 
were practicing assiduously on them with no result 
save that of convulsing the gathered populace on the 
platform, when an urchin of the village spied a puff 
of steam up the line and set all agog by the classic 
exclamation, " epxerai," equivalent to the New England 
lad's " she 's comin' 1 " 

The comfort of being handed into that train by 
Spyros and seeing our baggage set in after us with- 
out a qualm over the proper fee for \he/acchim can 
only be realized by those who have experienced it. 
And, by the way, the baggage was reduced to the 
minimum for the journey, consisting of a suit case 
apiece. Our party was composed of those who habitu- 
ally " travel light," even on the regular lines of traffic ; 
but for the occasion we had curtailed even our usual 
amount of impedimenta by sending two of our grips 
around to the other end of our route by the northern 
rail. Nobody would care to essay this cross-country 
jaunt with needless luggage, where every extra tends 
to multiply the number of pack mules. 



IN ARCADIA 215 

The train, which was fresh from Athens and bound 
for the southern port of Kalamata, soon turned aside 
from the ^gean coast and began a laborious ascent 
along the sides of deep valleys, the line making im- 
mense horseshoes as it picked its way along, with 
frequent rocky cuts but never a tunnel. I do not 
recall that we passed through a single tunnel in all 
Greece. The views from the windows, which were 
frequently superb as the train panted slowly and 
painfully up the long grades, nevertheless were of 
the traditional rocky character — all rugged hills 
devoid of greenery, barren valleys where no water 
was, often suggesting nothing so much as the rocky 
heights of Colorado. It tended to make the contrast 
the sharper when the train, attaining the heights at 
last, shot through a pass which led us out of the 
barren rocks and into the heart of the broad plain 
of Arcady. It was the real Arcadia of the poets 
and painters, utterly different from the gray country 
which we had been sojourning in and had come to 
regard as typical of all Greece. It was the Arcadia of 
our dreams — a broad, peaceful, fertile plain, green 
and smiling, peopled with pastoral folk, tillers of the 
fields, shepherds, and doubtless poets, pipers, and 
nymphs. There is grandeur and beauty in the rugged 
hills and narrow valleys of the north, but it would be 
wrong to assume that Greece is simply that and no- 



2i6 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

thing more. At least a portion of Arcadia is exactly 
what the poets sing. The hills retreated suddenly to 
the remote distance and left the railway running along 
a level plain dotted with farms. Water ran rejoicing 
through. Trees waved on the banks of the brooks. 
Far off to the south the rugged bulk of Taygetos 
marked from afar the site of Sparta, the long ridge 
of the mountain still covered with a field of gleaming 
snow. 

Arcadia boasts two of these large, oval plains, the 
one dominated by Tripolis and the other by Mega- 
lopolis. Into the first-mentioned the train trundled 
early in the afternoon and came to a halt amid a shout- 
ing crowd of carriage drivers clamoring for passen- 
gers to alight and make the drive down to Sparta. 
The road is said to be an excellent one, and that 
we had not planned to lengthen our journey to that 
point, and thence westward by the Langada Pass to 
the country which we later saw, has always been one 
of the regrets which mark our Hellenic memories. 
Sparta has made little appeal to the modern visitor 
through any surviving remains of her ancient great- 
ness, and has fallen into exactly the state that Thu- 
cydides predicted for her. For he sagely remarked, 
in comparing the city with Athens, that future ages 
were certain to underestimate Sparta's size and 
power because of the paucity of enduring monu- 



IN ARCADIA 217 

ments, whereas the buildings at Athens would be 
likely to inspire the beholder with the idea that she 
was greater than she really was. That is exactly true 
to-day, although the enterprising British school has 
lately undertaken the task of exploring the site of the 
ancient Lacedaemonian city and has already uncov- 
ered remains that are interesting archaeologically, 
whatever may be true of their comparison with Athe- 
nian monuments for beauty. In any event, Sparta, 
with her stern discipline, rude ideals, and martial 
rather than intellectual virtues, can never hope to 
appeal to modern civilization as Athens has done, 
although her ultimate overwhelming of the Athenian 
state entitles her to historical interest. Sparta lies 
hard by the mountain Taygetos, and to this day they 
show you a ravine on the mountain-side where it is 
claimed the deformed and weakly Spartan children 
were cast, to remove them from among a race which 
prized bodily vigor above every other consideration. 
It is a pity that Sparta, which played so vast a part 
in early history, should have left so little to recall her 
material existence. If she was not elegant or cultured, 
she was strong ; and her ultimate triumph went to 
prove that the land where wealth accumulates and 
men decay has a less sure grip on life than the ruder, 
sterner nations. 

So it was that we passed Sparta by on the other 



2i8 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

side and journeyed on from the smiling plain of Tri- 
polis to the equally smiling one of Megalopolis, enter- 
ing thoroughly into the spirit of Arcadia and vainly 
seeking the while to bring from those shepherd pipes 
melody fit to voice the joy of the occasion. It was 
apparent now that we had crossed the main water- 
shed of Hellas, for the train was on a downward 
grade and the brakes shrieked and squealed shrilly 
as we ground into a tiny junction where stood the 
little branch-line train for Megalopolis. And in the 
cool of the afternoon we found ourselves in that mis- 
named town, in the very heart of Arcadia, the late 
afternoon light falling obliquely from the westering 
sun as it sank behind an imposing row of serrated 
mountains, far away. 

To one even remotely acquainted with Greek roots, 
the name Megalopolis must signify a large city. As 
a matter of fact, it once was so. It was erected de- 
liberately with the intention of making a large city, 
founded by three neighboring states, as a make- 
weight against the increasing power of the Lacedae- 
monians ; but, like most places built on mere fiat, it 
dwindled away, until to-day it is a village that might 
more appropriately be called Mikropolis — if, indeed, 
it is entitled to be called a " polls " of any sort. The 
railway station, as usual, lay far outside the village, 
and in the station yard the one carriage of the town 



IN ARCADIA 219 

was awaiting us. Into it we were thrust ; Spyros 
mounted beside the driver, a swarthy native ; and 
with a rattle that recalled the famous Deadwood 
coach we whirled out of the inclosure and off to the 
town. The village itself proved to be but a sorry 
hole, to put it in the mildest form. It was made up 
of a fringe of buildings around a vacant common, 
level as a floor and sparsely carpeted with grass and 
weeds. As we passed house after house without turn- 
ing in, hope grew, along with thankfulness, that we 
had at least escaped spending the night in any hovel 
hitherto seen. Nevertheless we did eventually stop 
before a dingy abode, and were directed to alight and 
enter there. Under a dark stone archway and over a 
muddy floor of stone pavement we picked our gin- 
gerly way, emerging in a sort of inner court, which 
Spyros pointed out was a " direct survival of the 
hypaethral megaron of the ancient Mycenaean house " 
— a glorified ancestry indeed for a dirty area around 
which were grouped the apartments of the family pig, 
cow, and sundry other household appurtenances and 
attaches. It was an unpromising prelude for a night's 
lodging, but it made surprise all the greater when we 
emerged, by means of a flight of rickety stairs, on a 
little balcony above, and beheld adjoining it the apart- 
ments destined for our use. They had been swept 
and garnished, and the floors had been scrubbed 



220 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

until they shone. The collapsible iron beds had been 
erected and the bedding spread upon them, while 
near by stood the dinner table already laid for the 
evening meal ; and presiding over it all stood the 
cook, to whose energy all these preparations were 
due, smiling genially through a forest of mustache, 
and duly presented to us as " Stathi." 

In the twilight we whetted our appetites for dinner 
by a brisk walk out of the village, perhaps half a mile 
away, to the site of the few and meagre ruins that 
Megalopolis has to show. Our progress thither was 
attended with pomp and pageantry furnished by the 
rabble of small boys and girls whose presence was at 
first undesirable enough, but who later proved useful 
as directing us to the lane that led to the ruins and 
as guards in stoning off sundry sheep dogs that dis- 
puted the way with us. The usual disbursement of 
lepta ensued, and we were left to inspect the remains 
of ancient greatness in peace. Those remains were 
few and grass-grown. They included little more than 
a theatre, once one of the greatest in Greece, with the 
structures behind the orchestra still largely visible, 
and a few foundations of buildings behind these, on 
the bank of a winding river. Aside from these the 
old Megalopolis is no more. 

That night we sat down to a dinner such as few 
hotels in Athens could have bettered. The candle- 



IN ARCADIA 221 

sticks on the table were of polished silver, which bore 
the monogram of the ancestors of Spyros. Our table- 
cloth and napkins were embroidered. Our dishes 
were all of a pattern, and we afterwards discovered 
that every piece of our household equipment, from 
soup plates to the humblest " crockery " of the family 
supply, bore the same tasteful decoration. Many a 
time we have laughed at the incongruity between 
our surroundings and the culinary panorama that 
Stathi conjured up from his primitive kitchen out- 
side and served with such elegance. It was a master- 
piece of the chef's art, six courses following each 
other in rapid succession, all produced in the narrow 
oven where a charcoal fire blazed in answer to the 
energetic fanning of a corn broom. Soup gave place 
to macaroni ; macaroni to lamb chops and green 
peas ; chickens followed, flanked by beans and new 
potatoes from the gardens of the neighborhood ; Ger- 
man pancakes wound up the repast ; and coffee was 
served in an adjoining coffee-house afterward — the 
whole accompanied by copious draughts of the wa- 
ter of Andros, which cheers without inebriating, and 
beakers of the red wine of Solon, which I suspect 
is capable of doing both. A very modern-looking oil 
lamp helped furnish heat as well as light, for we were 
high above the sea and the night was chilly. Even to 
this remote district the product of the Rockefeller in- 



222 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

dustry has penetrated, and no sight is more common 
than the characteristic square oil cans, with a wooden 
bar across the centre for carrying, which the peasants 
use for water buckets when the original oil is ex- 
hausted. They are useful, of course — more so than 
the old-fashioned earthen amphorse. But they are 
not as picturesque. 

My companion, whom it will be convenient to call 
the Professor, and I adjourned to the cofifee-house 
below for our after-dinner smoke, and demanded cofTee 
in our best modern Greek, only to evoke the hearty 
response, " Sure," from our host. It seemed he had 
lived in New York, where he maintained an oyster 
bar ; and, like all who have ever tasted the joys of 
Bowery life, he could not be happy anywhere else, 
but yearned to hear the latest news from that land of 
his heart's desire. We tarried long over our cups, 
and had to force payment on him. Thence we retired 
through the low-browed arch that led to our abode, 
barred and locked it with ponderous fastenings that 
might have graced the Lion Gate itself, and lay down 
to repose on our collapsible beds, which happily did 
not collapse until Spyros and Stathi prepared them 
for the next day's ride. This they did while we break- 
fasted. The morning meal came into the bedrooms 
bodily on a table propelled by our faithful servitors, 
the food having been prepared outside ; and as we 



IN ARCADIA 223 

ate, the chamber work progressed merrily at our table 
side, so that in short order we were ready for the road. 
The carriage for the journey stood without the main 
gate, manned by a dangerous-looking but actually 
affable native, and behind it lay a spring cart of two 
wheels, wherein were disposed our beds, cooking 
utensils, and other impedimenta. The word of com- 
mand was given, and the caravan set out blithely for 
the western mountains, bowed out of town by the 
beaming face of the man who had kept an oyster bar. 
The road had an easy time of it for many a level 
mile. It ran through a fertile plain, watered by 
the sources of the famous Alpheios River, which we 
skirted for hours, the hills steadily converging upon 
us until at last they formed a narrow gorge through 
which the river forced its way, brawling over rocks, 
to the Elian plains beyond. Beside the way was an 
old and dismantled winepress, which we alighted 
long enough to visit. Disused as it was, it was easy 
to imagine the barefooted maidens of the neighbor- 
hood treading out the juices of the grapes in the 
upper loft, the liquid flowing down through the loose 
flooring into the vats beneath. It is the poetic way of 
preparing wine ; but having seen one night of peasant 
life already, we were forced to admit that modern 
methods of extracting the juice seem rather to be 
preferred. 



224 GREECE AND THE AEGEAN ISLANDS 

Just ahead lay the gateway of Arcadia, guarded 
by a conspicuous conical hill set in the midst of the 
narrowing plain between two mountain chains and 
bearing aloft a red-roofed town named Karytaena. 
Time was too brief and the sun too hot to permit us 
to ascend thereto, but even from the highway below it 
proved an immensely attractive place, recalling the 
famous hill towns of Italy. Behind it lay the broad- 
ening plain of Megalopolis and before the narrow 
ravine of the Alpheios, walled in by two mighty hills. 
Karytaena seems like an inland Gibraltar, and must 
in the old days have been an almost impregnable 
defense of the Arcadian country on its western side, 
set as it is in the very centre of a constricted pass. 
But for some reason, possibly because the enemies 
of Greece came chiefly from the east, it seems not 
to have figured prominently as a fortress in history. 
Below the town the road wound down to the river's 
edge and crossed the stream on a quaint six-arched 
bridge, against one pier of which some thankful per- 
sons had erected a shrine of Our Lady. And beyond 
the road began a steady ascent. We had left the 
plain for good, it appeared. Before us lay the deep 
and tortuous defile through which the river flows to 
the western seas, the roar of its rushing waters grow- 
ing fainter and fainter below as the panting horses 
clambered upward with their burdens, until at last 




AN OUTPOST OF ARCADY 



IN ARCADIA 225 

only a confused murmuring of the river was heard 
mingling with the rustle of the wind through the 
leaves of the wayside trees. The road was not pro- 
vided with parapets save in a few unusually danger- 
ous corners, and the thought of a plunge down that 
steep incline to the river so far below was not at all 
pleasant. Fortunately on only one occasion did we 
meet another wagon, and on that one occasion our 
party incontinently dismounted and watched the care- 
ful passage of the two with mingled feelings. It was 
accomplished safely and easily enough, but we felt 
much more comfortable to be on the ground and see 
the wheels graze the edge of the unprotected outside 
rim of the highway. 

Every now and then a cross ravine demanded an 
abrupt descent of the road from its airy height, and 
down we would go to the bottom of a narrow valley, 
the driver unconcernedly cracking his whip, the bells 
of our steeds jangling merrily, and our party hang- 
ing on and trying hard to enjoy the view in a nervous 
and apprehensive way, although increasingly mind- 
ful of the exposed right-hand edge of the shelf. It 
bothered Stathi, the cook, not at all. He was riding 
behind on the baggage cart which followed steadily 
after, and at the steepest of the descent he was sway- 
ing from side to side on the narrow seat, his cigar- 
ette hanging neglected from his lips — sound asleep. 



226 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

These occasional ravines appeared to be due to 
centuries of water action, and their banks, which were 
well covered with woods, were marked here and there 
by tiny threads of cascades which sang pleasantly 
down the cliffs from above, crossed the road, and dis- 
appeared into the wooded depths of the river valley 
below. Baedeker had mentioned a huge plane tree 
and a gushing spring of water as a desirable place 
to lunch, but we looked for them in vain. Instead we 
took our midday meal beside a stone khan lying 
deserted by the roadside, in which on the open hearth 
Stathi kindled a fire and produced another of his 
culinary miracles, which we ate in the open air by 
the road, under a plane tree that was anything but 
gigantic. We have never quite forgiven Baedeker that 
" gushing spring." When one has lived for a month 
or more on bottled waters, the expectation of drink- 
ing at nature's fount is not lightly to be regarded. 

The remainder of the ride was a steady climb to 
Andhritsaena, varied by few descents, although this 
is hardly to be deemed a drawback. The knowledge 
that one has two thousand feet to climb before the 
goal is reached does not conduce to welcome of a 
sudden loss of all the height one has by an hour's hard 
climb attained. The tedium of the hours of riding was 
easily broken by descending to walk, the better thus 
to enjoy the view which slowly opened out to the 



IN ARCADIA 227 

westward. We were in the midst of the mountains of 
the Peloponnesus now, and they billowed all around. 
It was a deserted country. Distant sheep bells and 
occasional pipes testified that there was life some- 
where near, but the only person we met was a woman 
who came down from a hill to ask the driver to get 
a doctor for her sick son when he should reach 
Andhritsaena. At last, well toward evening, the drivers 
pointed to a narrow cut in the top of the hill which 
we were slowly ascending by long sweeping turns of 
road and announced the top of the pass. And the 
view that greeted us as we entered the defile was one 
not easy to forget. Through the narrow passage in 
the summit lay a new and different country, and in 
the midst of it, nestling against the mountain-side, lay 
Andhritsaena, red roofed and white walled, and punc- 
tuated here and there by pointed cypress trees. Below 
the town, the hills swept sharply away to the valleys 
beneath, filled with green trees, while above the rocks 
of the mountain-side rose steeply toward the even- 
ing sky. In the western distance we saw for the first 
time Erymanthus and his gigantic neighbors, the 
mountains that hem in the plain about Olympia, 
the taller ones snow-clad and capped with evening 
clouds. We straightened in our seats. Stathi came 
out of his doze. The whips cracked and we dashed 
into the town with the smartness of gait and poise 



228 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

that seem to be demanded by every arrival of coach 
and four from Greece to Seattle. And thus they 
deposited us in the main square of Andhritsaena, 
under a huge plane tree, whose branches swept over 
the entire village street, and whose trunk lost itself in 
the buildings at its side. The carriage labored away. 
The dragoman and his faithful attendant sought our 
lodging house to set it in order. And in the mean- 
time we stretched our cramped limbs in a walk 
around the town, attended as usual by the entire idle 
population of youths and maidens, to see the village 
from end to end before the sun went down. 

I should, perhaps, add the remark that in my 
spelling of " Andhritssena " I have done conscious 
violence to the word as it stands on the map — the 
added " h " representing a possibly needless attempt 
to give the local pronunciation of the name. It is 
accented on the second syllable. 



CHAPTER XII. ANDHRITS^NA AND 
THE BASS^ TEMPLE 




WE found the village of Andhritssena fascinat- 
ing in the extreme, from within as well as from 
without. It was obviously afflicted with a degree of 
poverty, and suffers, like most Peloponnesian towns, 
from a steady drain on its population by the emigra- 
tion to America. Naturally it was squalid, as Mega- 
lopolis had been, but in a way that did not mar the 
natural beauty of its situation, and, if anything, in- 
creased its internal picturesqueness. This we had 
abundant opportunity to observe during our initial 
ramble through the place, starting from the gigantic 
plane tree which forms a sort of nucleus of the entire 
village, and which shelters with its spreading branches 
the chief centre of local activity, — the region imme- 
diately adjacent to the town pump. It was not exactly 
a pump, however. The term is merely conventional, 
and one must understand by it a stone fountain, fed 
by a spring, the water gushing out by means of two 



230 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

spouts, whither an almost continuous stream of towns- 
folk came with the inevitable tin oil-cans to obtain 
water for domestic uses. 

The main, and practically the only, street of the 
town led westward from the plane, winding along 
through the village in an amiable and casual way. It 
was lined close on either side by the houses, which 
were generally two stories in height, and provided 
with latticed balconies above to make up for the 
necessary lack of piazzas below. Close to the great 
central tree these balconies seemed almost like the 
arboreal habitation made dear to the childish heart 
by the immortal Swiss Family Robinson ; and in these 
elevated stations the families of Andhritsaena were 
disporting themselves after the burden and heat of 
the day, gossiping affably to and fro across the street, 
or in some cases reading. 

We found it as impossible to disperse our body 
guard of boys and girls as had been the case the 
evening before at Megalopolis. Foreign visitors in 
Andhritsaena are few enough to be objects of uni- 
versal but not unkindly curiosity to young and old ; 
and the young, being unfettered by the insistent de- 
mands of cofTee-drinking, promptly insisted on at- 
tending our pilgrimage en masse. It was cool, for the 
sun was low and the mountain air had begun to take 
on the chill of evening. We clambered up to a lofty 



ANDHRITS^NA AND BASS^ TEMPLE 231 

knoll over the town and looked down over its slant- 
ing tiles to the wooded valley beneath, the evening 
smoke of the chimneys rising straight up in thin, 
curling wisps, while from the neighboring hills came 
the faint clatter of the herd bells and occasionally the 
soft note of some boy's piping. Far away to the north 
we could see the snowy dome of Erymanthus, rising 
out of a tumbling mass of blue mountains, while be- 
tween lay the opening and level plain of the Alpheios, 
widening from its narrows to form the broad meadows 
of Elis on the western coasts of the Peloponnesus. 
Here and there the house of some local magnate, 
more prosperous than the rest, boasted a small yard 
and garden, adorned with the sombre straightness of 
cypresses. Behind the town rose the rocky heights 
of the neighboring hills, long gorges running deep 
among them. Whichever way the eye turned, there 
was charm. The body guard of infantry retired to a 
respectful distance and stood watching us, finger bash- 
fully to mouth in silent wonderment. Mothers with 
babies came out of near-by hovels to inspect us, and 
enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed the prospect that 
opened before. 

From the aspect of the houses of the town we had 
adjudged it prudent to allow Spyros and Stathi a 
decent interval for the preparation of our abode be- 
fore descending to the main street again and seeking 



232 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

out the house. Apparently the exact location of it 
was known by the entire population by this time, 
for, as we descended, willing natives pointed the way 
by gesticulations, indicating a narrow and not en- 
tirely prepossessing alley leading down from the 
central thoroughfare by some rather slimy steps, to 
a sort of second street, and thence to another alley, 
if anything less prepossessing than the first, where a 
formidable wooden gateway gave entrance to a court. 
Here the merry villagers bade adieu and retired to 
their coffee again. Once within, the prospect bright- 
ened. It was, of course, the fore-court of a peasant's 
house, for hotels are entirely lacking in Andhritsaena. 
It was paved with stone flagging, and above the 
courtyard rose a substantial veranda on which stood 
the host — a bearded man, gorgeous in native dress, 
the voluminous skirt of which was immaculate in its 
yards and yards of fustanella. From tasseled fez to 
pomponed shoes he was a fine type of peasant, con- 
trasting with his wife, who wore unnoticeable clothes 
of European kind. She was a pleasant-faced little 
body, and evidently neat, which was more than all. 
And she ushered us into the house to the rooms 
where Spyros and the cook were busily engaged in 
making up the beds, discreetly powdering the mat- 
tresses, and setting things generally to rights. The 
embroidered bed linen which had given us such de- 



ANDHRITS^NA AND BASS^ TEMPLE 233 

light by its contrast with the surroundings at Mega- 
lopolis at once caught the eye of the peasant woman, 
and she promptly borrowed a pillow-case to learn the 
stitch with which it was adorned. As for the rooms, 
they were scrubbed to a whiteness. 

Just outside, overlooking the narrow by-way 
through which we had entered, was the inevitable 
balcony, whence the view off to the northern mountains 
was uninterrupted ; and while supper was preparing 
we wrapped ourselves in sweaters and shawls and 
stood in mute admiration of the prospect — the deep 
valley below, the half-guessed plain beyond, and the 
rugged line of peaks silhouetted against the golden 
afterglow of the sunset. From this view our attention 
was distracted only by the sudden clamor of a church 
bell close at hand, which a priest was insistently ring- 
ing for vespers. The bell was hung, as so often hap- 
pens, in a tree beside the church ; and to prevent the 
unauthorized sounding of it by the neighborhood 
urchins the wise priest had caused the bell-rope to 
be shortened so that the end of it hung far up among 
the branches, and was only to be reached for the pur- 
poses of the church by a long iron poker, which the 
holy man had produced from somewhere within his 
sanctuary and which he was wielding vigorously to 
attract the attention of the devout. It may have been 
a sort of Greek angelus, designed to mark the hour 



234 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of general sunset prayer ; for nobody appeared in re- 
sponse to its summons, and after clanging away for 
what seemed to him a sufficient interval the priest 
unshipped the poker and retired with it to the inner 
recesses of the church, to be seen no more. The 
nipping and eager evening air likewise drove us to 
shelter, and the heat of the lamp and candles was 
welcome as lessening, though ever so slightly, the 
cold which the night had brought. It was further 
temporarily forgotten in the discussion of the smil- 
ing Stathi's soups and chickens and flagons of 
Solon. 

The professor and I stumbled out in the darkness 
of the yard after the evening meal in search of a 
coffee-house, for the better enjoyment of our post- 
prandial cigarettes, but we got no farther than the 
outer court before deciding to return for a lantern. 
Andhritsaena turned out to be not only chilly, but in- 
tensely dark o' nights. Its serpentine by-ways were 
devoid of a single ray of light, and even the main 
street, when we had found it, was relieved from utter 
gloom only by the lamps which glimmered few and 
faint in wayside shops that had not yet felt the force 
of the early-closing movement. The few wayfarers 
that we met as we groped our way along by the in- 
effectual fire of a square lantern, wherein a diminu- 
tive candle furnished the illuminant, likewise carried 



ANDHRITS^NA AND BASS^ TEMPLE 235 

similar lights, and looked terrible enough hooded in 
their capotes. Diogenes-like, we sought an honest 
man, — and speedily discovered him in the proprietor 
of a tiny "kaffeneion," who welcomed us to his tables 
and set before us cups of thick coffee, fervently dis- 
claiming the while his intention to accept remunera- 
tion therefor. Indeed this generosity bade fair to be 
its own reward, for it apparently became known in a 
surprisingly short time that the foreign visitors were 
taking refreshment in that particular inn, with the 
result that patronage became brisk. The patrons, 
however, apparently cared less for their coffee than 
for the chance to study the newcomers in their midst 
at close range, and after we had basked for a suffi- 
cient time in the affable curiosity of the assembled 
multitude we stumbled off again through the night 
to our abode, the lantern casting gigantic and awful 
shadows on the wayside walls the while. 

Now the chief reason for our visiting this quaint 
and out-of-the-way hamlet was its contiguity to the 
mountain on the flat top of which stands the ancient 
Bassae temple. The correct designation, I believe, is 
really the "temple at Bassse," but to-day it stands 
isolated and alone, with no considerable habitation 
nearer than Andhritsaena, whatever was the case when 
it was erected. The evidence tended to show that 
Bassae might be reached with about the same ease 



236 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

on foot as on horseback, or at least in about the 
same time ; but as we were entirely without experience 
in riding, it was voted best that we begin our train- 
^^S by securing steeds for this minor side trip, in 
order to have some slight preparation for the twelve 
hours in the saddle promised us for the day following 
— a portentous promise that had cast a sort of in- 
definite shadow of apprehension over our inmost souls 
since leaving Nauplia. It was a wise choice, too, be- 
cause it revealed to us among other things the diffi- 
culty of Greek mountain trails and the almost absolute 
sure-footedness of the mountain horse. 

We were in the saddle promptly at nine, and in 
Indian file we set out through the village street, filled 
with the tremors natural to those who find themselves 
for the first time in their lives seated on horseback. 
But these tremors were as nothing to what beset us 
almost immediately on leaving the town and striking 
into the narrow ravine that led up into the hills behind 
it. It developed that while the prevailing tendency of 
the road was upward, this did not by any means pre- 
clude several incidental dips, remarkable alike for 
their appalling steepness and terrifying rockiness, 
for which their comparative brevity only partially 
atoned. The sensation of looking down from the 
back of even a small horse into a gully as steep as a 
sharp pitch roof, down which the trail is nothing but 



ANDHRITS^NA AND BASS^ TEMPLE 237 

the path of a dried-up torrent filled with boulders, 
loose stones, smooth ledges, sand, and gravel, is any- 
thing but reassuring. It was with silent misgivings 
and occasional squeals of alarm that our party en- 
countered the first of these descents. We had not yet 
learned to trust our mounts, and we did not know that 
the well-trained mountain horse is a good deal more 
likely to stumble on a level road than on one of those 
perilous downward pitches. From the lofty perches on 
top of the clumsy Greek saddles piled high with rugs, 
it seemed a terrifying distance to the ground ; and 
the thought of a header into the rocky depth along 
the side of which the path skirted or down into which 
it plunged was not lightly to be shaken ofT. It was 
much better going up grade, although even here we 
found ourselves smitten with pity for the little beasts 
that scrambled with so much agility up cruel steeps of 
rock, bearing such appreciable burdens of well-nour- 
ished Americans on their backs. Spyros did his best to 
reassure us. He was riding ahead and throwing what 
were intended as comforting remarks over his shoul- 
der to Mrs. Professor, who rode next in line. And as 
he was not aware of the exact make-up of the party's 
mounts, he finally volunteered the opinion that horses 
were a good deal safer than mules for such a trip, be- 
cause mules stumbled so. Whereupon Mrs. Professor, 
who was riding on a particularly wayward and moun- 



238 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

tainous mule, emitted a shriek of alarm and descended 
with amazing alacrity to the ground, vowing that 
walking to Bassae was amply good enough for her. 
Nevertheless the mule, although he did stumble a 
little now and then, managed to stay with us all the 
way to Olympia, and no mishap occurred. 

The saddles lend themselves to riding either 
astride or sidesaddle, and the ordinary man we met 
seemed to prefer the latter mode. The saddle frame 
is something the shape of a sawhorse, and after it 
is set on the back of the beast it is piled high with 
blankets, rugs, and the like, making a lofty but fairly 
comfortable seat. For the ladies the guides had 
devised little wooden swings suspended by rope to 
serve as stirrups for the repose of their soles. The 
arrangement was announced to be comfortable 
enough, although it was necessary for the riders to 
hold on fore and aft to the saddle with both hands, 
while a muleteer went ahead and led the beasts. In 
some of the steeper places the maintenance of a seat 
under these conditions required no little skill. As for 
the men, there were no special muleteers. We were 
supposed to know how to ride, and in a short time 
we had discovered how to guide the horses with the 
single rein provided, either by pulling it, or by press- 
ing it across the horse's neck. To stop the modern 
Greek horse you whistle. That is to say, you whistle 



ANDHRITS^NA AND BASS^ TEMPLE 239 

if you can muster a whistle at all, which is some- 
times difficult when a panic seizes you and your 
mouth becomes dry and intractable. In the main 
our progress was so moderate that no more skill was 
needed to ride or guide the steeds than would be 
required on a handcar. Only on rare occasions, when 
some of the beasts got off the track or fell behind, 
was any real acquaintance with Greek horsemanship 
required. This happened to all of us in turn before 
we got home again, and in each case the muleteers 
came to our aid in due season after we had com- 
pletely lost all recollection of the proper procedure 
for stopping and were seeking to accomplish it by 
loud " whoas " instead of the soothing sibilant which 
is the modern Greek equivalent for that useful, and 
indeed necessary, word. 

We found it highly desirable now and then to alight 
and walk, for to the unaccustomed rider the strain of 
sitting in a cramped position on a horse for hours at 
a time is wearying and benumbing to the lower limbs. 
On the ride up to Bassse, those who did no walking 
at all found it decidedly difficult to walk when they 
arrived. The one deterrent was the labor involved in 
dismounting and the prospective difficulty of getting 
aboard again. In this operation the muleteers assisted 
our clumsiness not a little, and we discovered that 
the way to attract their attention to a desire to alight 



240 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

was to say"ka-t6, " in a commanding tone — the 
same being equivalent to " down." 

So much for our experiences as we wound along 
the sides of rocky ravines and gorges in the heart of 
the hills behind Andhritsaena. When we had grown 
accustomed to the manipulation of the horses and had 
learned that the beasts really would not fall down and 
dash us into the depths below, we began to enjoy the 
scenery. It was rugged, for the most part, although 
at the bottoms of the valleys there was frequently 
meadow land spangled with innumerable wildflowers 
and shrubbery, watered by an occasional brook. It 
was a lovely morning, still cool and yet cloudless. The 
birds twittered among the stunted trees. We passed 
from narrow vale to narrow vale, and at last, when 
no outlet was to be seen, we ceased to descend and 
began a steady climb out of the shady undergrowth 
along the side of a rocky mountain, where there was 
no wood at all save for scattered groves of pollard 
oaks — curious old trees, low and gnarled, covered 
with odd bunches, and bearing an occasional wreath 
of mistletoe. At the ends of their branches the trees 
put forth handfuls of small twigs, which we were 
told the inhabitants are accustomed to lop off for 
fagots. It is evident that the trees do not get half a 
chance to live and thrive. But they manage in some 
way to prolong their existence, and they give to the 



ANDHRITS^NA AND BASS^ TEMPLE 241 

region at Bassae and to the temple there a certain 
weird charm. 

Off to the west as we climbed there appeared a 
shining streak of silver which the guides saw and 
pointed to, shouting " Thalassa ! Thalassa ! " (the 
sea). And, indeed, it was the first glimpse of the 
ocean west of Greece. Shortly beyond we attained 
the summit and began a gentle descent along a sort 
of tableland through a sparse grove of the stunted 
oaks, among which here and there appeared round 
flat floors of stone used for threshing. Many of these 
could be seen on the adjacent hills and in the valleys, 
and the number visible at one time proved to be 
something like a score. All at once, as we wound 
slowly down through the avenue of oaks, the temple 
itself burst unexpectedly into view, gray like the sur- 
rounding rocks, from which, indeed, it was built. To 
approach a shrine like this from above is not com- 
mon in Greece, and this sudden apparition of the 
temple, which is admirably preserved, seem.s to have 
struck every visitor who has described it as exceed- 
ingly beautiful, particularly as one sees it framed in 
a foreground of these odd trees. We were high 
enough above the structure to look down into it, for 
it is of course devoid of any roof ; and unlike most 
of the other temples, it was always so, for it was of 
the " hypaethral " type, and intended to be open to 



242 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the sky. Nor was this the only unusual feature of the 
temple at Bassae. It was peculiar among the older 
shrines in that it ran north and south instead of east 
and west, which was the regular custom among the 
roofed structures of the Greeks. Of course this differ- 
ence in orientation has given rise to a great deal 
of discussion and speculation among those whose 
opinions are of weight in such matters. Probably the 
casual visitor in Greece is well aware of the custom 
of so fixing the axes of temples as to bring the east- 
ern door directly in line with the rising sun on cer- 
tain appropriate days, for the better illumination of 
the interior on those festivals. Although such expe- 
dients as the use of translucent marble roofs were 
resorted to, the lighting of the interior of roofed tem- 
ples was always a matter of some little difficulty, and 
this arrangement of the doorways was necessary to 
bring out the image of the god in sufficiently strong 
light. From this system of orientation it has occa- 
sionally been possible to identify certain temples 
as dedicated to particular deities, by noting the 
days on which the rising sun would have come ex- 
actly opposite the axis of the shrine. No such con- 
sideration would apply with the same force to a 
hypaethral temple, whatever else might have figured 
in the general determination of the orientation. But 
even at Bassae, where the length of the temple so 



ANDHRITS^NA AND BASSJE TEMPLE 243 

obviously runs north and south, it is still true that 
one opening in it was eastward, and it is supposed 
that in the end of the temple space was an older 
shrine to Apollo, which, like other temples, faced the 
rising sun. This older precinct was not interfered 
with in erecting the greater building, and it is still 
plainly to be seen where the original sacred precinct 
was. 

The members of the single encircling row of col- 
umns are still intact, although in some cases slightly 
thrown out of alignment ; and they still bear almost 
the entire entablature. The cella wall within is also 
practically intact, and inside it are still standing large 
sections of the unusual engaged half-columns which 
encircled the cella, standing against its sides. The great 
frieze in bas-relief, which once ran around the top, 
facing inward, is now in the British Museum, where it 
is justly regarded as one of the chief treasures of the 
Greek collection. It hardly needs the comment that 
such arrangement of the frieze was highly unusual, 
inside the building, instead of on the outer side of 
the cella, as was the case in the Parthenon. Ictinus, 
the architect of the Parthenon, also built the temple 
at Bassae, which was dedicated by the Phigalians to 
" Apollo the Helper," in gratification for relief from a 
plague. That fact has given rise to the conjecture that 
it was perhaps built at the same time that the plague 



244 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

ravaged Athens, during the early part of the Pelo- 
ponnesian War. However that may be, it is evidently 
true that it belongs to the same golden age that gave 
us the Parthenon and the Propylsea at Athens. Un- 
like them, it does not glow with the varied hues of the 
weathered Pentelic marble, but is a soft gray, due to 
the native stone of which it was constructed. And this 
gray color, contrasting with the sombreness of the 
surrounding grove, gives much the same satisfactory 
effect as is to be seen at ^gina, where the temple is 
seen, like this, in a framework of trees. 

Needless to say, the outlook from this lofty site — 
something like four thousand feet above the sea — 
is grand. The ocean is visible to the south as well as 
to the west. The rolling mountains to the east form 
an imposing pageant, culminating in the lofty Tay- 
getos range. Looming like a black mound in the 
centre of the middle distance to the southward is the 
imposing and isolated acropolis of Ithome, the strong- 
hold of the ancient Messenians. As usual, the builders 
of the temple at Bassae selected a most advantageous 
site for their shrine. It was while we were enjoying 
the view after lunch that a solitary German appeared 
from the direction of Ithome, having passed through 
the modern Phigalia. He had a boy for a guide, but 
aside from that he was roaming through this deserted 
section of Greece alone. He knew nothing of the Ian- 




TEMPLE AT BASSA:, FROM ABOVE 




TEMPLE AT BASS^E, FROM BELOW 



ANDHRITS.ENA AND BASS^ TEMPLE 245 

guage. He had no dragoman to make the rough 
places smooth. He had spent several sorry nights in 
peasants' huts, where vermin most did congregate. 
But he was enjoying it all with the enthusiasm of the 
true Philhellene, and on the whole was making his 
way about surprisingly well. We sat and chatted for 
a long time in the shade of the temple, comparing it 
with the lonely grandeur of the temple at Segesta, in 
Sicily. And as the sun was sinking we took the home- 
ward way again, but content to walk this time rather 
than harrow our souls by riding down the excessively 
steep declivity that led from the mountain to the 
valleys below. 

At dinner that night in Andhritsaena an old man 
appeared with wares to sell — curiously wrought and 
barbaric blankets, saddlebags, and the like, appar- 
ently fresh and new, but really, he claimed, the dowry 
of his wife who had long been dead. He had no fur- 
ther use for the goods, but he did think he might 
find uses for the drachmae they would bring. Need- 
less to say, our saddlebags were the heavier the next 
day when our pack-mules were loaded for the journey 
over the hills to Olympia. 

One other thing deserves a word of comment be- 
fore we leave Andhritsaena, and that is the cemetery. 
We had seen many funeral processions at Athens, 
carrying the uncoffined dead through the streets, but 



246 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

we had never paid much attention to the burial places, 
because they are still mainly to be found outside the 
city gates, and not in the line commonly taken by 
visitors. At Andhritsaena we came upon one, how- 
ever, and for the first time noticed the curious little 
wooden boxes placed at the heads of the graves, 
resembling more than anything else the bird-houses 
that humane people put on trees at home. Inside of 
the boxes we found oil stains and occasionally the 
remains of broken lamps, placed there, we were told, 
as a "mnemeion" — doubtless meaning a memorial, 
which word is a direct descendant. The lamps appear 
to be kept lighted for a time after the death of the per- 
son thus honored, but none were lighted when we saw 
the cemetery of Andhritsaena, and practically all had 
fallen into neglect, as if the dead had been so long 
away that grief at their departure had been forgotten. 
A little chapel stood hard by, and on its wall a metal 
plate and a heavy iron spike did duty for a bell. 

Then the cold night settled down upon Andhrit- 
saena, and we retired to the warmth of our narrow 
beds, ready for the summons which should call us 
forth to begin our fatiguing ride to the famous site 
of old Olympia. 



CHAPTER XIII. OVER THE HILLS 
TO OLYMPIA 




AT five o'clock the persistent thumping of Spyros 
on the bedroom doors announced the call of 
incense-breathing morn, though Phoebus had not yet 
by any means driven his horses above the rim of the 
horizon. The air outside was thick o' fog, — doubtless a 
low-lying cloud settling on the mountain, — and it was 
dark and cheerless work getting out of our narrow 
beds and dressing in the cold twilight. Nevertheless 
it was necessary, for the ride to Olympia is long, and 
Spyros had promised us a fatiguing day, with twelve 
hours in the saddle as a minimum. To this forecast 
the pessimistic Baedeker lent much plausibility by his 
reference to the road as being unspeakably bad ; and 
besides we ourselves had on the previous day gath- 
ered much personal experience of the mountain trails 
of the region. Breakfast under these circumstances 
was a rather hasty meal, consumed in comparative 
silence. 



248 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

By the time the last of the rolls and jam had dis- 
appeared and the task of furling up the beds was well 
advanced, a clatter of hoofs in the village street drew 
one of the party to the door, whence word was speed- 
ily returned that the street outside was full of horses. 
And it was. There were ten steeds, including four for 
our party, two for Spyros and Stathi, one for a mule- 
teer relief conveyance, and the rest for the baggage — 
the latter being small and seemingly quite inadequate 
burros or donkeys, who proved more notable for their 
patient indifference than for size or animation. While 
these were being laden, four other beasts drew near, 
bearing our solitary German of the day before and 
another of his countrymen who had materialized dur- 
ing the night, with their impedimenta. They were 
welcomed to the caravan, which, numbering fourteen 
beasts and almost as many humans, took the road out 
of town with commendable promptitude at sharp six 
o'clock. The cloud had lifted as we rounded the west- 
ern edge of the valley and looked back at Andhrit- 
ssena, glimmering in the morning light. We were 
streaming off in Indian file along a very excellent 
road, like that on which we had ridden up from 
Megalopolis two days before, and which promised well 
for a speedy removal of the apprehensions awakened 
by Baedeker. But the road did not last long. Before 
we had fairly lost Andhritsaena in the hills behind, 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 249 

the leading guide turned sharply to the left, through 
a rocky defile in the hillside, and precipitated us down 
one of those rocky torrent beds, with the nature of 
which we had become only too familiar the day be- 
fore. It was the less disturbing this time, however, 
because we had learned to trust implicitly to the care- 
ful feet of our horses, with no more than a firm grip 
on bridle and pommel and an occasional soft whistle, 
or murmured " ochs', ochs'," to the intelligent beasts 
as an outward and audible sign of inward and spiritual 
perturbation. It was steep but short, and we came out 
below upon the road again, to everybody's uncon- 
cealed delight. 

The road, however, soon lost itself in a meadow. 
When it is ultimately finished, the journey will be 
much easier than we found it. In a few years I sup- 
pose it will be perfectly possible to ride to Olympia 
in a carriage, and the horseback problem will cease 
to deter visitors to Bassae from continuing their jour- 
ney westward. The way now lay along a pleasant 
and rolling meadow country, dotted with primitive 
farms, which glowed under the bright morning sun. 
We splashed through a narrow upland river and up 
another rocky ascent, beyond which another down- 
ward pitch carried us to a still lower meadow. Mean- 
time the cold of morning gave place to a growing 
warmth, and the wraps became saddle blankets in 



250 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

short order. We rode and walked alternately, choos- 
ing the level stretches through the grass for pedes- 
trianism and riding only when we came to sharp 
upward climbs, thus easing the fatigue that we should 
otherwise have found in continued riding. Always 
we could see the imposing peaks to the north, and 
the downward tendency of the trail soon brought out 
the altitude of the hills behind Andhritssena. The im- 
mediate vicinity of our path was pastoral and agri- 
cultural, in the main, for the recurring ridges over 
which we scrambled served only as boundaries be- 
tween well-watered vales in which small trees and 
bushes flourished, and where the occasional sharp 
whir of pressure from a primitive penstock called 
attention to the presence of a water mill. Aside from 
these isolated mills there was little sign of habitation, 
for the fields seemed mostly grown up to grass. In 
the far distance we could see the valley of the Alpheios, 
broadening out of its confining walls of rock to what 
seemed like a sandy reach in the plain far below, and 
we were told that at nightfall we should be ferried 
across it close to Olympia, provided we caught the 
boatmen before they left for home. It v/as this anxiety 
to be on time that led Spyros to urge us along, lest 
when we came out at the bank of the river we should 
find no response to the ferryman's call of " Varka ! 
Varka ! " — the common mode of hailing boatmen in 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 251 

Greece. With this for a spur we wasted little time on 
the way, but proceeded steadily, now riding, now 
walking, up hill and down dale, through groves of 
low acacias or Judas trees, or along grassy meadows 
where a profusion of wild flowers added a touch of 
color to the green. 

The pleasant valley, however, proved not to be 
the road for very long. In an hour or so the guides 
branched off again into a range of hills that seemed 
as high as those we had left, and there entered a tor- 
tuous ravine worn by a mountain brook, along which 
the path wound higher and higher toward a distant 
house which the muleteers pointed out and pro- 
nounced to be a " ievoSoxuov," — the Professor had 
long ago learned to call it " Senator Sheehan," — at 
which wayside inn the mistaken impression prevailed 
that we were speedily to lunch. It was not so to be, 
however. When we had achieved the height and 
rested under two leafy plane trees that we found 
there, Spyros repeated his tale about the ferrymen 
and their departure at sundown ; and we must away 
at once, with no more refreshment than was to be 
drawn from some crackers and a bottle of Solon. 
And so we pressed on again, still climbing, though 
more gradually. The path was not so bad after all, 
despite the Baedeker, and in one place we voted it 
easily the finest spot we had found in all our Pelo- 



252 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

ponnesian rambles. We were riding along at the time 
through a shady grove when we came suddenly upon 
a collection of mammoth planes, whose branches 
spread far and wide, and from the midst of the cleft 
side of one of them a spring bubbled forth joyously, 
flooding the road. It was here that the king on one 
of his journeys the year before had stopped to rest 
and partake of his noonday meal. It seemed to us, 
famished by six hours of hard riding, that the king's 
example was one all good citizens should follow ; but 
Spyros was inexorable, and reminded us that ferry- 
men might wait for the King of Greece, but not for 
any lesser personages whatsoever. We must not halt 
until we got to Gremka ; for at Gremka we should 
find a good road, and beyond there it was four hours 
of travel, and we might judge exactly how much time 
we had for rest by the hour of our reaching the place. 
So we obediently proceeded, joined now by two more 
beasts so laden with the empty oil-cans common to 
the region that only their legs were visible. These 
furnished the comedy element in the day's experi- 
ences, for the donkeys thus loaded proved to be con- 
trary little creatures, always getting off the trail and 
careering down the mountain-side through the scrubby 
trees and bushes, their deck-loads of tin making a 
merry din as they crashed through the underbrush, 
while our guides roared with derisive laughter at the 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 253 

discomfiture of the harassed attendants. When not 
engaged in ridiculing the owners of those numerous 
and troublesome oil-cans, the muleteers sang anti- 
phonally some music in a minor key which Spyros 
said was a wedding song wherein the bridegroom 
and the bride's family interchange sentiments. This 
seems to be the regular diversion of muleteers, judg- 
ing by the unanimity with which travelers in Greece 
relate the experience. Anon our muleteers would like- 
wise find amusement by stealing around behind and 
administering an unexpected smack on the plump 
buttocks of the horses, with the inevitable result of 
starting the beast out of his meditative amble into 
something remotely resembling a canter, and elicit- 
ing an alarmed squeal from the rider — at which the 
muleteer, with the most innocent face in the world, 
would appear under the horse's nose and grasp the 
bridle, assuring the frightened equestrian that the 
beast was "kala" — or **all right." 

All the steeds were small with the exception of the 
altitudinous mule ridden by one of the ladies, and 
they were not at all bothered by the low branches of 
the trees through which we wended our way. Not 
so, however, the riders. The thorny branches that 
just cleared the nonchalant horse's head swept over 
the saddle with uncompromising vigor, and the 
effort to swing the beast away from one tree meant 



254 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

encountering similar difficulties on the other side of 
the narrow path. Through this arboreal Scylla and 
Charybdis it was extremely difficult navigation and 
the horses took no interest in our plight at all, so 
that long before we emerged from the last of the 
groves along the way we were a beraveled and 
bescratched company. 

Shortly after noon two villages appeared far ahead, 
and we were engaged in speculating as to which 
one was Gremka, when the guides suddenl}^ turned 
again and shot straight up the hill toward a narrow 
defile in the mountain wall we had been skirting. It 
proved as narrow as a chimney and almost as steep, 
and for a few moments we scrambled sharply, our 
little horses struggling hard to get their burdens up 
the grade ; but at last they gained the top, and we 
emerged from between two walls of towering rock 
into another and even fairer landscape. The plain of 
the Alpheios spread directly below, but we were not 
allowed to descend to it. Instead we actually began 
to climb, and for an hour or two more we rode along 
the side of the range of hills through the midst of 
which we had just penetrated. The path was plea- 
santly wooded, and the foliage was thick enough to 
afford a grateful shade above and a soft carpeting 
of dead leaves below. The air was heavy with the 
balsamic fragrance of the boughs, and the birds sang 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 255 

merrily although it was midday. Through the vistas 
that opened in this delightful grove we got recurring 
glimpses of the Erymanthus range, now separated 
from us only by the miles of open plain, and vastly 
impressive in their ruggedness. 

The sides of the range of hills along which our 
path wound were corrugated again and again by 
ravines, worn by the brooks, and our progress was 
a continual rising and falling in consequence. The 
footing was slippery, due to the minute particles of 
reddish gravel and sand, so that here even our 
mountain horses slipped and stumbled, and we were 
warned to dismount and pick our own way down, 
which we did, shouting gayly " Varka ! Varka ! " at 
the crossing of every absurd little three-inch brook, 
to the intense enjoyment of the muleteers. And thus 
by two in the afternoon we arrived at Gremka, a 
poor little hamlet almost at the edge of the great 
plain, and were told that we had made splendid time, 
so that we might have almost an hour of rest, while 
Stathi unlimbered the sumpter mules and spread 
luncheon under two pleasant plane trees beside a 
real spring. 

From Gremka on, we found the road again. It was 
almost absolutely level after we left the minor foot- 
hill on which Gremka sits, and for the remainder of 
our day we were to all intents and purposes in civili- 



256 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

zation again. Curiously enough, it was here that our 
little horses, that had been so admirably reliable in 
precipitous trails of loose rock and sand, began to 
stumble occasionally, as if careless now that the road 
was smooth and doubtless somewhat weary with the 
miles of climbing and descending. The guides and 
muleteers, refreshed with a little food and a vast 
amount of resinated wine, began to sing marriage 
music louder than ever, and the most imposing figure 
of all, a man who in every-day life was a butcher and 
who carried his huge cleaver thrust in his leathern 
belt, essayed to converse with us in modern Greek, 
but with indifferent success. The landscape, while no 
longer rugged, was pleasant and peaceful as the road 
wound about the valley through low hillocks and 
knolls crowned with little groves of pine, the broad 
lower reaches of the rivers testifying that we were 
nearing the sea. And at last, toward sunset, we swung 
in a long line down over the sands that skirt the rush- 
ing Alpheios and came to rest on the banks opposite 
Olympia, whose hotels we could easily see across the 
swelling flood. 

The Alpheios is not to be despised as a river in 
April. It is not especially wide, but it has what a 
good many Greek rivers do not, — water, and plenty 
of it, running a swift course between the low banks 
of the south and the steeper bluffs that confine it on 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 257 

the Olympia side. The ferry was waiting. It proved 
to be a sizable boat, of the general shape of a coast- 
wise schooner, but devoid of masts, and mainly hol- 
low, save for a little deck fore and aft. Three voluble 
and, as it proved, rapacious natives manned it, the 
motive power being poles. With these ferrymen Spy- 
ros and Stathi almost immediately became involved 
in a furious controversy, aided by our cohort of mule- 
teers. It did not surprise us greatly, and knowing that 
whatever happened we should be financially scathless, 
we sat down on the bank and skipped pebbles in the 
water. It developed that the boatman had demanded 
thrice his fee, and that Spyros, who had no illusions 
about departed spirits, objected strenuously to being 
gouged in this way and was protesting vehemently 
and volubly, while Stathi, whose exterior was ordi- 
narily so calm, was positively terrible to behold as he 
danced about the gesticulating knot of men. It finally 
became so serious that the Professor and I, looking 
as fierce as we could, ranged ourselves alongside, men- 
tioning a wholly mythical intimacy with the head of 
the Hellenic police department in the hope of promot- 
ing a wholesome spirit of compromise, but really more 
anxious to calm the excited cook, who was clamor- 
ing for the tools of his trade that he might dispatch 
these thrice-qualified knaves of boatmen then and 
there. Eventually, as tending to induce a cessation 



258 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of hostilities, we cast off the mooring — whereat the 
dispute suddenly ended and the beasts of burden went 
aboard. So also did the Professor, who was anxious 
to establish a strategic base on the opposite bank ; 
and the rest of us sat and watched the craft pushed 
painfully out into the stream and well up against the 
current, until a point was reached whence the force of 
the river took her and bore her madly down to her 
berth on the Olympia bank. Here fresh difficulties 
arose, — not financial but mechanical. The heavily 
loaded little donkeys proved utterly unable to step 
over the gunwale and get ashore. It was an inspiring 
sight to watch, the Professor tugging manfully at the 
bridle and the remainder of the crew boosting with 
might and main ; but it was of no avail, although they 
wrought mightily, until at the psychological moment 
and in the spot most fitted to receive it, a muleteer 
gave the needed impetus by a prodigious kick, which 
lifted the patient ass over the side and out on the 
bank. The rest was easy. We were ferried over in 
our turn and disappeared from the view of the boat- 
men, each side expressing its opinion of the other in 
terms which we gathered from the tones employed 
were the diametrical reverse of complimentary. It was 
twelve hours to a dot from the time of our departure 
from Andhritsaena when we strolled into our hotel — 
at which fact Spyros plumed himself not a little. 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 259 

It had not been an unduly fatiguing day, after all. 
The frequent walking that we had done served to 
break up the tedium of long riding, which otherwise 
would have been productive of numb limbs and stiff 
joints. It is well to bear this in mind, for I have seen 
unaccustomed riders assisted from their saddles after 
too long jaunts utterly unable to stand, and of course 
much less to walk, until a long period of rest had 
restored the circulation in the idle members. Fortu- 
nately, too, we had been blessed with an incomparable 
day. Spyros confessed that he had secretly dreaded 
a rain, which would have made the path dangerous 
in spots where it was narrow and composed of clay. 
As it was, we arrived in Olympia in surprisingly good 
condition, and on schedule time, though by no means 
unready to welcome real beds again and the chance 
for unlimited warm water. 

Olympia, like Delphi, is a place of memories 
chiefly. The visible remains are numerous, but so 
flat that some little technical knowledge is needed to 
restore them in mind. There is no village at the mod- 
em Olympia at all, — nothing but five or six little inns 
and a railway station, — so that Delphi really has 
the advantage of Olympia in this regard. As a site 
connected with ancient Greek history and Greek re- 
ligion, the two places are as similar in nature as they 
are in general ruin. The field in which the ancient 



26o GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

structures stand lies just across the tiny tributary 
river Cladeus, spanned by a footbridge. 

Even from the opposite bank, the ruins present 
a most interesting picture, with its attractiveness 
greatly enhanced by the neighboring pines, which 
scatter themselves through the precinct itself and 
cover densely the little conical hill of Kronos close 
by, while the grasses of the plain grow luxuriantly 
among the fallen stones of the former temples and 
apartments of the athletes. The ruins are so numer- 
ous and so prostrate that the non-technical visitor is 
seriously embarrassed to describe them, as is the case 
with every site of the kind. All the ruins, practically, 
have been identified and explained, and naturally 
they all have to do with the housing or with the con- 
tests of the visiting athletes of ancient times, or with 
the worship of tutelary divinities. Almost the first 
extensive ruin that we found on passing the encir- 
cling precinct wall was the Prytaneum — a sort of 
ancient training table at which victorious contestants 
were maintained gratis — while beyond lay other 
equally extensive remnants of exercising places, such 
as the Palaestra for the wrestlers. But all these were 
dominated, evidently, by the two great temples, an 
ancient one of comparatively small size sacred to 
Hera, and a mammoth edifice dedicated to Zeus, 
which still gives evidence of its enormous extent. 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 261 

while the fallen column-drums reveal some idea of 
the other proportions. It was in its day the chief 
glory of the inclosure, and the statue of the god 
was even reckoned among the seven wonders of the 
world. Unfortunately this statue, like that of Athena 
at Athens, has been irretrievably lost. But there is 
enough of the great shrine standing in the midst of 
the ruins to inspire one with an idea of its greatness ; 
and, in the museum above, the heroic figures from 
its two pediments have been restored and set up in 
such wise as to reproduce the external adornment of 
the temple with remarkable success. Gathered around 
this central building, the remainder of the ancient 
structures having to do with the peculiar uses of the 
spot present a bewildering array of broken stones 
and marbles. An obtrusive remnant of a Byzantine 
church is the one discordant feature. Aside from this 
the precinct recalls only the distant time when the 
regular games called all Greece to Olympia, while 
the " peace of God" prevailed throughout the king- 
dom. Just at the foot of Kronos a long terrace and 
flight of steps mark the position of a row of old trea- 
suries, as at Delphi, while along the eastern side of 
the precinct are to be seen the remains of a portico 
once famous for its echoes, where sat the judges who 
distributed the prizes. There is also a most graceful 
arch remaining to mark the entrance to the ancient 



262 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

stadium, of which nothing else now remains. Of the 
later structures on the site, the " house of Nero " is 
the most interesting and extensive. The Olympic 
games were still celebrated, even after the Roman 
domination, and Nero himself entered the lists in his 
own reign. He caused a palace to be erected for him 
on that occasion — and of course he won a victory, for 
any other outcome would have been most impolite, 
not to say dangerous. Nero was more fortunately 
lodged than were the other ancient contestants, it 
appears, for there were no hostelries in old Olympia 
in which the visiting multitudes could be housed, and 
the athletes and spectators who came from all over 
the land were accustomed to bring their own tents 
and pitch them roundabout, many of them on the 
farther side of the Alpheios. 

The many treasuries, to which reference has been 
made as running along the terrace wall at the very 
foot of the hill of Kronos, are spoken of by Pausanias. 
Enough of them is occasionally to be found to enable 
one to judge how they appeared — somewhat, no 
doubt, like the so-called "treasury of the Athenians" 
that one may see in a restored form at Delphi. In 
these tiny buildings were kept the smaller votive 
gifts of the various states and the apparatus for the 
games. Not far from this row of foundations and 
close by the terrace wall that leads along the hill 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 263 

down to the arch that marks the stadium entrance, 
are several bases on which stood bronze statues of 
Zeus, set up by the use of moneys derived from fines 
for fracturing the rules of the games. Various ancient 
athletes achieved a doubtful celebrity by having to 
erect these " Zanes," as they were called, one of them 
being a memorial of the arrant coward Sarapion of 
Alexandria, who was so frightened at the prospect of 
entering the pankration for which he had set down 
his name that he fled the day before the contest. 

Within the precinct one may still see fragments 
of the pedestal which supported Phidias's wonderful 
gold-and-ivory image of Zeus. The god himself is 
said to have been so enchanted with the sculptor's 
work that he hurled a thunderbolt down, which struck 
near the statue ; and the spot was marked with a vase 
of marble. Just how approval was spelled out of so 
equivocal a manifestation might seem rather diffi- 
cult to see ; but such at any rate was the fact. Of the 
other remaining bases, the most interesting is doubt- 
less the tall triangular pedestal of the Nike of Paeo- 
nius, still to be seen in situ, though its graceful statue 
is in the museum. 

Just above the meadows on the farther bank, there 
runs a range of hills, through which we had but re- 
cently ridden. And it was there that the ancients found 
a convenient crag from which to hurl the unfortunate 



264 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

women who dared venture to look on at the games. 
The law provided that no woman's eye should see 
those contests, and so far as is known only one wo- 
man caught breaking this law ever escaped the pen- 
alty of it. She was the mother of so many victorious 
athletes that an unwonted immunity was extended to 
her. Other women, whose disguise was penetrated, 
were made stern examples to frighten future venture- 
some maids and matrons out of seeking to view what 
was forbidden. 

The games at Olympia were celebrated during a 
period of about a thousand years, throughout which time 
they furnished the one recognized system of dates. 
They recurred at four-year intervals. Long before the 
appointed month of the games, which were always 
held in midsummer, duly accredited ambassadors 
were sent forth to all the cities and states of Hellas to 
announce the coming of the event and to proclaim the 
" peace of God," which the law decreed should prevail 
during the days of the contest, and in which it was 
sacrilege not to join, whatever the exigency. On the 
appointed date the cities of all Greece sent the flower 
of their youth to Olympia, runners, wrestlers, discus 
throwers, chariot drivers, boxers, and the like, as well 
as their choicest horses, to contend for the coveted 
trophy. During the first thirteen Olympiads there was 
but one athletic event, — a running race. In later times 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 265 

the number was added to until the race had grown 
to a " pentathlon," or contest of five kinds, and still 
later to include twenty-four different exercises. None 
but Greeks of pure blood could contest, at least until 
the Roman times, and nobles and plebeians vied in 
striving for the victor's wreath, although the richer 
were at a decided advantage in the matter of the horse 
races. The prize offered, however, was of no intrinsic 
value at all, being nothing but a crown of wild olive, 
and it astonished and dismayed the invading Persians 
not a little to find that they were being led against a 
nation that would strive so earnestly and steadfastly 
for a prize that seemed so little. As a matter of fact 
it was not as slight a reward as it appeared to be, for 
in the incidental honors that it carried the world has 
seldom seen its equal. The man who proved his right 
to be crowned with this simple wreath was not only 
regarded as honored in himself, but honor was im- 
puted to his family and to his city as well ; and the 
city generally went wild with enthusiasm over him, 
some even going so far as to raze their walls in token 
that with so gallant sons they needed no bulwarks. 
Special privileges were conferred upon him at home 
and even abroad. In many cities the victor of an 
Olympic contest was entitled to maintenance at the 
public charge in the utmost honor, and the greatest 
poets of the day delighted to celebrate the victors in 



266 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

their stateliest odes. Thus, although games in honor 
of the gods were held at various other points in 
Greece, as for example at Delphi and at the isthmus 
of Corinth, none surpassed the Olympic as a national 
institution, sharing the highest honors with the oracle 
at Delphi as an object of universal reverence. 

Of course the origin of these great games is 
shrouded in mystery, which has, as usual, crystal- 
lized into legend. And as the pediment in one end 
of the temple of the Olympian Zeus, preserved in the 
museum near by, deals with this story, it may be 
in order to speak of it. Tradition relates that King 
CEnomaus had a splendid stud of race horses of which 
he was justly proud, and likewise was possessed of 
a surpassingly beautiful daughter whom men called 
Hippodameia, who was naturally sought in marriage 
by eligible young men from all around. The condi- 
tion precedent set by CEnomaus to giving her hand 
was, however, a difficult one. The suitor must race 
his horses against those of CEnomaus, driving the 
team himself ; and if he lost he was put to death. One 
version relates that CEnomaus, if he found himself 
being distanced, was wont to spear the luckless swains 
from behind. At any rate nobody had succeeded 
in winning Hippodameia when young Pelops came 
along and entered the contest. He had no doubt 
heard of the king's unsportsmanlike javelin tactics. 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 267 

for he adopted some subterfuges of his own, — doing 
something or other to the chariot of his opponent, 
such as loosening a linchpin or bribing his charioteer 
to weaken it in some other part, — with the result that 
when the race came off CEnomaus was thrown out 
and killed, and Pelops won the race and Hippoda- 
meia — and of course lived happily ever after. 

The pedimental sculptures from the great temple 
reproduce the scene that preceded the race in figures 
of heroic size, with no less a personage than Zeus 
himself in the centre of the group, while CEnomaus 
and Pelops with their chariots and horses and their 
attendants range themselves on either side, and Hip- 
podameia stands expectantly waiting. The restora- 
tions have been liberal, but on the whole successful ; 
and besides giving a very good idea of the legend 
itself, they are highly interesting from a sculptural 
point of view as showing a distinctive style of carving 
in marble. The other pediment, preserved in about the 
same proportion, is less interesting from a legendary 
standpoint, but is full of animation and artistic in- 
terest. It represents the contest between the Centaurs 
and Lapiths, with Apollo just in the act of interven- 
ing to prevent the rape of the Lapith women. This 
episode had little appropriateness to the Olympic site, 
so far as I know, but the ease with which the Centaur 
lent himself to the limitations of pedimental sculpture 



268 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

might well explain the adoption of the incident here. 
The head of Apollo is of the interesting type with 
which one grows familiar in going through museums 
devoted to early work, the most notable thing being 
the curious treatment of hair and eyes. 

The precinct about the great temple was once filled 
with votive statues, and Pliny relates that he counted 
something like three thousand. Of these it appears 
that few remain sufficiently whole to add much inter- 
est. But out of all the great assemblage of sculptures 
there is one at least surviving that must forever as- 
suage any grief at the loss of the rest. That, of course, 
is the inimitable Hermes of Praxiteles, which every- 
body knows through reproductions and photographs, 
but which in the original is so incomparably beautiful 
that no reproduction can hope to give an adequate 
idea of it, either in the expression of body and fea- 
tures, its poise and grace, or in the exquisite sheen 
of marble. They have wisely set it off by itself in a 
room which cannot be seen from the great main hall 
of the museum, and the observer is left to contem- 
plate it undistracted. It seems generally to be agreed 
that it is the masterpiece of extant Greek sculpture. 
It is nearly perfect in its preservation, the upraised 
arm and small portions of the legs being about all 
that is missing. The latter have been supplied, not 
unsuccessfully, to join the admirable feet to the rest. 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 269 

No effort has been made, and happily so, to supply 
the missing arm. The infant Dionysus perched on 
the left arm is no great addition to the statue, and 
one might well wish it were not there ; but even this 
slight drawback cannot interfere with the admiration 
one feels for so perfect a work. Hermes alone fully 
justifies the journey to Olympia, and once seen he 
will never be forgotten. The satin smoothness of 
the marble admirably simulates human (or god-like) 
flesh, doubtless because of the processes which the 
Greeks knew of rubbing it down with a preparation 
of wax. No trace of other external treatment survives, 
save a faint indication of gilding on the sandals. If 
the hair and eyes were ever painted, the paint has 
entirely disappeared in the centuries that the statue 
lay buried in the sands that the restless Alpheios and 
Cladeus washed into the sacred inclosure. For the 
rivers frequently left their narrow beds in former times 
and invaded the precincts of the gods, despite the 
efforts of man to wall them out. They have done 
irreparable damage to the buildings there, but since 
they at the same time preserved Hermes almost in- 
tact for modern eyes to enjoy, perhaps their other 
vandalisms may be pardoned. 

The museum also includes among its treasures a 
number of the metopes from the great temple of Zeus, 
representing the labors of Hercules. But probably next 



270 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

after the incomparable Hermes must be reckoned the 
Nike of Pseonius, standing on a high pedestal at one 
end of the great main hall, and seemingly sweeping 
triumphantly through space with her draperies flowing 
free — a wonderful lightness being suggested despite 
the weight of the material. This Nike has always 
seemed to me a fair rival of her more famous sister 
from Samothrace, suggesting the idea of victory even 
more forcibly than the statue on the staircase of the 
Louvre, which has an Amazonian quality suggestive 
of actual conflict rather than a past successful issue. 
The unfortunate circumstance about the Nike at Olym- 
pia is that her head is gone, and they have sought to 
suspend the recovered portion of it over the body by 
an iron rod. A wrist is in like manner appended to 
one of the arms, and the two give a jarring note, by 
recalling Ichabod Crane and Cap'n Cuttle in most 
incongruous surroundings. Nevertheless the Nike is 
wonderful, and would be more so if it were not for 
these lamentable attempts to restore what is not pos- 
sible to be restored. 

Of all the many little collections in Greece, that 
in Olympia is doubtless the best, and it is fittingly 
housed in a building in the classic style, given by a 
patriotic Greek, M. Syngros. Aside from the artistic 
remnants, there are a number of relics bearing on the 
athletic aspect of Olympia — its chief side, of course. 



OVER THE HILLS TO OLYMPIA 271 

And among these are some ancient discs of metal and 
stone, and a huge rock which bears an inscription re- 
lating that a certain strong man of ancient times was 
able to lift it over his head and to toss it a stated dis- 
tance. It seems incredible — but there were giants in 
the land in those days. 

The modern Olympic games, such as are held in 
Athens every now and then, are but feeble attempts to 
give a classic tone to a very ordinary athletic meet of 
international character. There is none of the signifi- 
cance attached to the modern events that attended the 
old, and the management leaves much to be desired. 
Former visitors are no longer maintained at the Pry- 
taneum ; but, on the contrary, are even denied passes 
to witness the struggles of their successors. The 
games fill Athens with a profitable throng and serve to 
advertise the country, but aside from this they have 
no excuse for being on Greek soil, and mar the land 
so far as concerns the enjoyment of true Philhellenes. 
Fortunately there is no possible chance of holding 
any such substitute games at Olympia herself. Her 
glory has departed forever, save as it survives in 
memory. 



CHAPTER XIV. THE ISLES OF 
GREECE: DELOS 



IT was a gray morning — for Greece. The sky was 
overcast, the wind blew chill from the north, and 
anon the rain would set in and give us a few moments 
of downpour, only to cease again and permit a brief 
glimpse ahead across the ^gean, into which classic 
sea our little steamer was thrusting her blunt nose, 
rising and falling on the heavy swell. We had borne 
around Sunium in the early dawn, and our course was 
now in an easterly direction toward the once famous 
but now entirely deserted island of Delos, the centre 
of the Cyclades. Ahead, whenever the murk lifted, we 
could see several of the nearer and larger islands of 
the group, — that imposing row of submerged moun- 
tain peaks that reveal the continuation of the Attic 
peninsula under water as it streams away to the south- 
east from the promontory of Sunium. The seeming 
chaos of the Grecian archipelago is easily reducible 
to something like order by keeping this fact in mind. 
It is really composed of two parallel submerged moun- 



THE ISLES OF GREECE: DELOS 273 

tain ranges, the prolongations of Attica and of Euboea 
respectively, the summits of which pierce the surface 
of the water again and again, forming the islands 
which every schoolboy recalls as having names that 
end in "os." Just before us, in a row looming through 
the drifting rain, we saw Kythnos, Seriphos, and Siph- 
nos, while beyond them, and belonging to the other 
ridge, the chart revealed Andros, Tenos, Naxos, My- 
konos, and Paros, as yet impossible of actual sight. 
This galaxy of islands must have proved highly use- 
ful to the ancient mariners, no doubt, since by reason 
of their numbers and proximity to each other and to 
the mainland, as well as by reason of their distinctive 
shapes and contours, it was possible always to keep 
some sort of landmark in sight, as was highly desir- 
able in days when sailors knew nothing of compasses 
and steered only by the stars. Lovers of Browning will 
recall the embarrassment that overtook the Rhodian 
bark that set sail with Balaustion for Athens, only to 
lose all reckoning and bring up in Syracuse. No an- 
cient ship was at all sure of accurate navigation with- 
out frequent landfalls, and even the hardy mariners of 
Athens were accustomed, when en route to Sicily, to 
hug the rugged shores of the Peloponnesus all the way 
around to the opening of the Corinthian Gulf, and 
thence to proceed to Corfu before venturing to strike 
off westward across the Adriatic to the " heel " of 



274 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Italy, where one could skirt the shore again until Sicily 
hove in sight near the dreaded haunts of Scylla. Of 
course other considerations, such as food and water, 
added to the desirability of keeping the land in sight 
most of the time on so long a voyage ; but not the least 
important of the reasons was the necessity of keeping 
on the right road. 

We had set sail on a chartered ship, in a party 
numbering about forty, most of whom were bent on 
the serious consideration of things archaeological, 
while the inconsiderable remainder were unblush- 
ingly in search of pleasure only slightly tinged by 
scientific enthusiasm. In no other way, indeed, could 
such a journey be made in anything like comfort. 
The Greek steamers, while numerous, are slow and 
small, and not to be recommended for cleanliness or 
convenience ; while their stated routes include much 
that is of no especial interest to visitors, who are 
chiefly eager to view scenes made glorious by past 
celebrity, and are less concerned with the modern sea- 
ports devoted to a prosaic trafBc in wine and fruits. 
To one fortunate enough to be able to number him- 
self among those who go down to the sea in yachts, 
the ^Egean furnishes a fruitful source of pleasure. To 
us, the only recourse was to the native lines of freight 
and passenger craft, or to join ourselves to a party 
of investigators who were taking an annual cruise 



THE ISLES OF GREECE: DELOS 275 

among the famous ancient sites. We chose the lat- 
ter, not merely because of the better opportunity to 
visit the islands we had long most wished to see, 
but because of the admirable opportunity to derive 
instruction as well as pleasure from the voyage. So 
behold us in our own ship, with our own supplies, 
our own sailing master and crew, sailing eastward 
over a gray sea, through the spring showers, toward 
the barren isle where Phcebus sprung. 

Delos is easy enough to find now, small as it is. 
It long ago ceased to be the floating island that le- 
gend describes. If we can permit ourselves a little 
indulgence in paganism, we may believe that this 
rocky islet was a chip, broken from the bed of the 
ocean by Poseidon, which was floating about at ran- 
dom until Zeus anchored it to afford a bed for Leto, 
that she might be comfortably couched at the birth 
of Apollo, despite the promise of Earth that the guilty 
Leto should have no place to lay her head. Thus the 
vow which the jealousy of Hera had procured was 
brought to naught, and in Delos was born the most 
celebrated of the sons of Zeus, together with his twin 
sister, Artemis. 

Delos is in fact a double island, divided by a nar- 
row strait into Greater and Lesser Delos. And it was 
with the lesser portion that we had to do, as also did 
ancient history. For despite its insignificant size and 



276 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

remoteness, Delos the Less was once a chief seat of 
empire and a great and flourishing city, as well as the 
repository of vast wealth. Distant as it seems from 
Athens, the island is really quite central with reference 
to the rest of the archipelago, and from its low sum- 
mit may be seen most of the Cyclades on a clear 
day. The narrow strait before referred to furnishes 
about all the harbor that is to be 'found at Delos 
to-day. Into this sheltered bit of water we steamed 
and dropped anchor, happy in the favoring wind that 
allowed us a landing where it is occasionally difficult 
to find water sufBciently smooth for the small boats ; 
for here, as in all Greek waters, small boats furnish 
the only means of getting ashore. There was a shal- 
low basin just before what was once the ancient city, 
and doubtless it was considered good harborage for 
the triremes and galleys of small draught ; but for even 
a small steamer like ours it was quite insufficient in 
depth, and we came to rest perhaps a quarter of a 
mile from the landing, while the clouds broke and 
the afternoon sun came out warm and bright as 
we clambered down to the dories and pulled for the 
shore. 

There proved to be little or no habitation save for 
the French excavators and their men, who were com- 
pleting a notable work in uncovering not only the an- 
cient precincts of Apollo and of the headquarters of the 



THE ISLES OF GREECE: DELOS 277 

Delian league, but the residence portion of the ancient 
city as well, which we later discovered to lie off to the 
east on the high ground. We landed on a sort of 
rocky mole erected along the edge of what was once 
the sacred harbor and picked our way along a narrow- 
gauge track used by the excavators, to the maze of 
ruins that lay beyond. It proved as bewildering a 
mass of fallen marbles as that at Olympia. The main 
part of the ruin is apparently a relic of the religious 
side of the place, dominated, of course, by the cult of 
Apollo. Centuries of reverence had contributed to the 
enrichment of the environs of the shrine. All about 
the visitor finds traces of porticoes and propylsea, the 
largest of these being erected by Philip V. of Mace- 
don, as is testified to by an extant inscription. Little 
remains standing of any of the buildings, but the 
bits of capital and entablature that lie strewn about 
serve to give a faint idea of the nature of the adorn- 
ment that attended the temples in their prime. It is 
not difficult to trace the course of the sacred way lead- 
ing from the entrance around the sacred precinct to 
the eastern fagade of the main temples, lined through- 
out most of its course by the bases of statues, altars, 
and remnants of the foundations of small rectangular 
buildings which are supposed to have been treasuries, 
as at Delphi and Olympia. Not far away from the 
main temple of the god is still to be seen the base of 



278 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

his colossal statue, an inscription reciting that the 
Naxians made it, and that they carved statue and base 
from the same stone. Whether this means that the 
figure and base were actually a single block, or only 
that the figure and base were made of the same specific 
material, has caused some little speculation. As for 
the statue itself, there are at least two large fragments 
on the ground not far away, easily identified by the 
modeling as parts of the huge back and breast of the 
colossus. One of his feet is preserved in the British 
Museum, and a hand is at the neighboring island of 
Mykonos. The rest is either buried in the earth near 
by, or has been carried off by vandals. That the earth 
has many treasures still to yield up is evident by the 
occasional accidental discoveries recently made on the 
site by the diggers. When we were there the con- 
struction of a trench for the diminutive car-track had 
unearthed a beautifully sculptured lion deep in the 
soil ; and since that time I have heard that several 
other similar finds have been made. So it may be 
that the lime burners have not made away with the 
great Apollo entirely. 

There are three temples, presumably all devoted 
to the cult of Apollo, and one of them no doubt to 
the memory of his unfortunate mother, Leto, who 
bore him, according to tradition, on the shores of the 
sacred lake near by. Not far from the Apollo group 



THE ISLES OF GREECE: DELOS 279 

are two other ruined shrines, supposed to have been 
sacred to Artemis. More interesting than either, how- 
ever, to the layman is the famous **hall of the bulls," 
which is the largest and best preserved of all the 
buildings, and which takes its name from the carved 
bullocks on its capitals. It is not saying much, how- 
ever, to say that it is better preserved than the others. 
It is only so in the sense that its extent and general 
plan are easier to trace. Its altar, known as the 
" horned altar of Apollo," from the rams' heads with 
which it was adorned, was accounted by the ancients 
one of the seven wonders of the world. We were well 
content to leave the sacred precinct, and to wander 
along toward the north, past the Roman agora, in the 
general direction of the sacred lake. It proved to 
be a sorry pool, stagnant and unattractive compared 
with what it must have been when it was in its prime, 
with its banks adorned with curbing. Not far from 
its shores we were shown the remains of several an- 
cient houses, also of the Roman period, in which the 
rooms were still divided by walls of a considerable 
height. These walls gave occasional evidence of 
having been adorned with stucco and frescoes, and 
the rooms revealed fragments of tessellated pave- 
ment, while under each house was a capacious cistern 
for the preservation of rain water. Of course these 
dwellings, while recalling Pompeii, were far less per- 



28o GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

feet in the way of artistic revelations, being so much 
older. 

These houses, interesting as they were, did not com- 
pare with those which we were later shown on the 
hill above the precinct. These we passed on our way 
up to the theatre, and to those of us who were un- 
skilled in archaeological science they proved to be the 
most absorbing of all the ruins on the little island. 
There are a good many of them, lining several old 
streets, as at Pompeii. Their walls are of sufficient 
altitude to give even an idea of the upper stories, 
and in one case, at least, we were able to mount, by 
a sadly ruined stone staircase, to what was once 
the upper landing. The general arrangement of the 
rooms was quite similar to that made familiar by the 
excavated houses at Pompeii, the great central court, 
or atrium, being adorned with a most remarkable 
mosaic representing Dionysos riding on a dragon 
of ferocious mien. It is kept covered, but a guard 
obligingly raised the heavy wooden door that shields 
it from the weather, and propped it up with a stick 
so that it resembled nothing so much as a huge piano 
lid. The coloring of the mosaic was lively in spite of 
its sombreness, and the eyes of the figures were ad- 
mirably executed. 

All around the atrium were traces of a colonnade, 
pieces of the columns remaining intact. The walls 



THE ISLES OF GREECE: DELOS 281 

were apparently decorated with bits of stone set deep 
in a coating of mortar, and once adorned with a col- 
ored wash of red, yellow, and blue. Mural paintings 
naturally were wanting, for these houses were not 
only older than those of the Neapolitan suburb, but 
they perished by a slow weathering process instead 
of by a sudden overwhelming such as overtook Pom- 
peii. What traces of painting there are left on the 
Delian walls are indistinct and rather unsatisfactory, 
and recall the childish scrawls of our own day. But 
the houses themselves, with their occasional pave- 
ments and the one admirable mosaic, leave little to 
be desired. Particularly interesting was the revela- 
tion of the drainage system. The houses were not 
only carefully provided with deep cisterns for pre- 
serving rain water ; they had also well-designed chan- 
nels for carrying waste water away. Every house in 
these streets had its drain covered with flat stones 
running out to the main sewer of the street, while 
those in turn converged in a trunk sewer at the foot 
of the slope. It is evident enough that Delos was a 
dry sort of place, both by nature and by artifice, and 
that in the period of the city's greatest celebrity it 
would be impossible for the historian to refer to the 
muddy condition existing at that period of the month 
just before the streets underwent their regular clean- 
ing. 



282 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

We had passed well up toward the theatre on the 
slopes of the height called Kythnos before we cleared 
the ancient dwellings. The theatre itself proved to 
be roomy, but largely grass-grown and exceedingly 
steep to clamber over. The portion devoted to seats 
was chiefly notable for occupying considerably more 
than the traditional semicircle, and for having its 
ends built up with huge walls of masonry. Only the 
lower seats are preserved. The colonnaded proske- 
nion, which may have supported a stage, is, however, 
highly unusual and interesting. 

Sundry venturesome spirits climbed to the summit 
of Kythnos, but it was no day for the view for which 
that eminence is celebrated. On a clearer day a 
great many of the Cyclades could be seen, no doubt, 
because of the central location of the island and the 
marvelous clarity of the Greek atmosphere, when it 
is clear at all. We were unfortunate enough to meet 
with a showery April day, which promised little in the 
way of distant prospects. Halfway down the side of 
Kythnos, however, was easily to be seen the grotto 
of Apollo. In fact, it is the most constantly visible 
feature of the island. It is a sort of artificial cave in 
the side of the hill toward the ruins, and here was 
the earliest of the temples to the god. Ancient hands 
added to what natural grotto there was by erecting a 
primitive portal for it. Two huge slabs of stone seem 




DELOS, SHOWING GROTTO 




GROTTO OF APOLLO. DELOS 



THE ISLES OF GREECE : DELOS 283 

to have been allowed to drop toward one another 
until they met, forming a mutual support, so that the 
effect is that of a gable. Other slabs have been ar- 
ranged to form a pitch roof over the spot, and a mar- 
ble lintel and gate posts have also been added, — 
presumably much later than the rest. It is even prob- 
able that this venerable shrine was also the seat of an 
oracle, for certain of the internal arrangements of the 
grotto bear a resemblance to those known to have 
existed at Delphi ; but if there was one in Delos, it 
never attained to the reputation that attended the 
later chief home of the far-darting god. 

The births of Apollo and Artemis appear to have 
been deemed quite enough for the celebrity of Delos ; 
for in after years, when the Athenians felt called upon 
to " purify " the city, they enacted that no mortal in 
the future should be permitted to be born or to die 
on the island. In consequence, temporary habitations 
were erected across the narrow strait on the shores 
of Greater Delos for the use of those in extremis or 
those about to be confined. Aside from this fact, the 
larger island has little or no interest to the visitor. 

There is, of course, a museum at Delos. Some day 
it will be a very interesting one indeed. At the time 
of our visit it was only just finished, and had not been 
provided with any floor but such as nature gave. In 
due season it will probably rank with any for its 



284 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

archaeological value, although it will be infinitely less 
interesting than others to inexpert visitors, who gen- 
erally prefer statues of fair preservation to small frag- 
ments and bits of inscription. Of the notable sculptures 
that must have abounded in Delos once, compara- 
tively little remains ; certainly nothing to compare 
with the charioteer and the Lysippus at Delphi, or 
with the Hermes and pedimental figures at Olym- 
pia. The great charm of Delos to the unskilled mind 
is to be found in its history and in its beautiful sur- 
roundings. As a birthplace of one of the major gods 
of high Olympus, the seat of the Delian league against 
the Persians, and the original treasury of the Athe- 
nian empire, Delos has history enough to satisfy an 
island many times her size. Traces still remain of the 
dancing place where the Delian maidens performed 
their wonderful evolutions during the annual pilgrim- 
age, which was a feature during the Athenian su- 
premacy ; and the temples and treasuries, ruined as 
they are, forcibly recall the importance which once 
attached to the spot. The memory still survives of 
the so-called "Delian problem" of the doubling of 
the cube, a task that proved a poser for the ancient 
mathematicians when the oracle propounded, as the 
price of staying a plague, that the Delians should 
double the pedestal of Parian marble that stood in 
the great temple. But it is almost entirely a place of 



THE ISLES OF GREECE : DELOS 285 

memories, deserted by all but the excavators and an 
occasional shepherd. To-day it is little more than the 
bare rock that it was when Poseidon split it from the 
bed of the sea. Apollo gave it an immortality, how- 
ever, which does not wane although Apollo himself is 
dead. Athens and Corinth gave it a worldly celebrity, 
which proved but temporary so far as it depended on 
activity in the world of affairs. Delos, washed by the 
/Egean, has little to look forward to but to drowse 
the long tides idle, well content with her crowded 
hour of glorious life, and satisfied that her neighbors 
should have the age without a name. 



CHAPTER XV. SAMOS AND THE 
TEMPLE AT BRANCHID^ 




THE stiff north wind, which was known to be 
blowing outside, counseled delaying departure 
from Delos until after the evening meal, for our course 
to Samos lay through the trough of the sea. In the 
shelter of the narrow channel between Greater and 
Lesser Delos the water was calm enough to enable 
eating in comfort, and it was the commendable rule 
of the cruise to seek shelter for meals, owing to the 
lack of " racks " to prevent the contents of the tables 
from shifting when the vessel rolled. Hence it was 
well along in the evening before the anchor was 
weighed ; and as the engines gave their first premon- 
itory wheezes, word was passed from the bridge that 
all who did not love rough weather would better re- 
tire at once, as we were certain to " catch it " as soon 
as we rounded the capes of the neighboring Mykonos 
and squared away for Samos across a long stretch of 
open water. The warning served to bring home to us 
one of the marked peculiarities about cruising in the 



SAMOS AND BRANCHID^ 287 

JEgesin, namely, the succession of calm waters and 
tempestuous seas, which interlard themselves like the 
streaks of fat and lean in the bacon from the Irish- 
man's pig, which was fed to repletion one day and 
starved the next. This, of course, is due to the numer- 
ous islands, never many miles apart, which are forever 
affording shelter from the breezes and waves, only to 
open up again and subject the craft to a rolling and 
boisterous sea as it crosses the stretches of open chan- 
nel between them. When the experiences due to these 
sudden transitions were not trying, they were likely 
to be amusing, we discovered, as was the case on one 
morning when the tables had been laid for break- 
fast rather imprudently just before rounding a windy 
promontory. The instant the ship felt the cross seas 
she began to roll heavily, and the entire array of break- 
fast dishes promptly left the unprotected table, only 
to crash heavily against the stateroom doors that lined 
the saloon, eliciting shrieks from those within ; while 
the following roll of the vessel sent the debris career- 
ing across the floor to bring up with equal resonance 
against the doors on the other side, the stewards mean- 
time being harassed beyond measure to recover their 
scudding cups and saucers. 

In the morning of our arrival ofif Samos we found 
ourselves moving along on an even keel, under the 
lee of that extensive island and close also to the 



288 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

shores of Asia Minor, the famous promontory of 
Mykale looming large and blue ahead. We coasted 
along the Samian shore, close enough to distinguish 
even from a distance the ruins of the once famous 
Heraeum, which was among the objects of our visit. 
It was marked from afar by a single gleaming col- 
umn, rising apparently from the beach. For the pre- 
sent we passed it by, the ship heading for the little 
white town farther ahead and just opposite the bay 
made by the great bulk of Mykale. It was historic 
ground, for it was at Mykale that the pursuing 
Greeks, under Leotychides and Xantippus, made the 
final quietus of the Persian army and navy in the 
year 479 B. C, just after Salamis, by the final defeat 
of Tigranes. Mykale, however, we viewed only from 
afar. The ship rounded the mole protecting the har- 
bor of what was once the chief city of Samos, and 
came to anchor for the first time in Turkish waters. 
While the necessary official visits and examination 
of passports were being made, there was abundant 
opportunity to inspect the port from the deck. It lay 
at the base of a rugged mountain, and the buildings 
of the city lined the diminutive harbor on two sides, 
curving along a low quay. In general appearance 
the town recalled Canea, in Crete, by the whiteness 
of its houses and the pale greenness of its shutters 
and the occasional slender tower of a mosque. Tech- 



SAMOS AND BRANCHID^ 289 

nically Samos is a Turkish island. Practically it is so 
only in the sense that it pays an annual tribute to 
the Sultan and that its Greek governor is nominated 
by that monarch. It was sufficiently Turkish, in any 
event, to require passports and the official call of a 
tiny skiff flying the crescent flag and bearing a re- 
splendent local officer crowned with a red fez. The 
formalities were all arranged by proxy ashore, and in 
due time the ship's boat returned, bearing the free- 
dom of the city and a limited supply of Samian cigar- 
ettes, which retailed at the modest sum of a franc and 
a half the hundred. 

Herodotus devotes a considerable space to the his- 
tory of the Samians in the time of the Persian supre- 
macy and especially to the deeds of the tyrant Poly- 
crates, who seized the power of the island and proved 
a prosperous ruler. In fact the rampant successes of 
Polycrates alarmed his friend and ally, King Amasis 
of Egypt, who had the wholesome dread of the an- 
cients for the "jealousy" of the gods ; and in conse- 
quence Amasis sent a messenger up to Samos to tell 
Polycrates that he was too successful for his own good. 
Amasis was afraid, according to the messenger, that 
some evil would overtake the Samian ruler, and he 
advised Polycrates to cast away whatever thing he 
valued the most as a propitiation of the gods. The 
advice so impressed Polycrates that he recounted his 



290 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

possessions, selected a certain emerald seal-ring that 
he cherished exceedingly, took it aboard a fifty-oared 
galley and, when sufficiently far out at sea, hurled the 
treasured ring into the water. Whereat he returned 
content that he had appeased the presumably jealous 
gods. In less than a week a fisherman, who had taken 
an unusually beautiful fish in those waters, presented 
it as a great honor to Polycrates, and in dressing it 
for the table the servants found in its belly the ring 
that Polycrates had tried so hard to cast away ! The 
event was held to be superhuman, and an account of 
it was promptly sent to Amasis in Egypt. He, how- 
ever, judging from it that Polycrates was inevitably 
doomed by heaven, ended his alliance with Samos on 
the naive plea that he should be sorry to have anything 
happen to a friend, and therefore proposed to make of 
Polycrates an enemy, that he need not grieve when 
misfortune overtook him ! Misfortune did indeed over- 
take Polycrates, and Herodotus describes at some 
length how it occurred, ending his discourse with the 
remark that he feels justified in dealing at such length 
with the affairs of the Samians because they have ac- 
complished " three works, the greatest that have been 
achieved by all the Greeks. The first is of a mountain, 
one hundred and fifty orgyiae in height, in which is dug 
a tunnel beginning at the base and having an open- 
ing at either side of the mountain. The length of the 



SAMOS AND BRANCHID^ 291 

tunnel is seven stadia, and the height and breadth are 
eight feet respectively. Through the whole length of 
the tunnel runs another excavation three feet wide and 
twenty cubits deep, through which cutting the water, 
conveyed by pipes, reaches the city, being drawn from 
a copious fount on the farther side of the mountain. 
The architect of this excavation was a Megarian, Eu- 
palinus the son of Naustrophus. This, then, is one 
of the three great works. The second is a mound 
in the sea around the harbor, in depth about a hun- 
dred orgyiae and in length about two stadia. The 
third work of theirs is a great temple, the largest we 
ever have seen, of which the architect was Rhoecus, 
son of Phileos, a native Samian. On account of these 
things I have dwelt longer on the affairs of the 
Samians." ^ 

It was, then, inside this mole, two stadia in length, 
that we were anchored. Doubtless the modern mole is 
still standing on the ancient foundation, but it would 
not be considered anything remarkable in the way of 
engineering to-day, whatever it may have been deemed 
in the childhood of the race. Something in the air of 
Samos must have bred a race of natural engineers, 
no doubt, for not only were these artificial wonders 
constructed there, but Pythagoras, the mathematical 
philosopher, was born in the island. 

» Herodotus, Book III, section 60. 



292 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

From the city up to the remnants of the ancient 
aqueduct in the mountain is not a difficult chmb, and 
the tunnel itself affords a great many points of interest. 
In an age when tunneling was not a common or well- 
understood art, it must indeed have seemed a great 
wonder that theSamians were able to pierce the bowels 
of this considerable rocky height to get a water supply 
that could not be cut off. The source of the flowage 
was a spring located in the valley on the side of the 
mountain away from the town, and it would have been 
perfectly possible to convey the water to the city with- 
out any tunnel at all, merely by following the valley 
around. For some reason this was deemed inexpedient 
— doubtless because of the evident chance an enemy 
would have for cutting off the supply. The obvious 
question is, what was gained by making the tunnel, 
since the spring itself was in the open and could have 
been stopped as readily as an open aqueduct ? And the 
only answer that has been suggested is that the spring 
alone is so concealed and so difficult to find that, even 
with the clue given by Herodotus, it was next to impos- 
sible to locate it. And in order to conceal the source 
still further, the burial of the conduit in the heart of the 
mountain certainly contributed not a little. Neverthe- 
less it is a fact that the farther end of the tunnel was 
discovered some years ago by tracing a line from the 
site of this spring, so that now the aqueduct has been 



SAMOS AND BRANCHID^ 293 

relocated and is found to be substantially as described 
by Herodotus in the passage quoted. 

Most visitors, possessed of comparatively limited 
time like ourselves, are content with inspecting only 
the town end of the tunnel, which lies up in the side 
of the mountain. It is amply large enough to enter, 
but tapers are needed to give light to the feet as one 
walks carefully, and often sidewise, along the ledge 
that borders the deeper cutting below, in which once 
ran the actual water pipes. The depth of the latter, 
which Herodotus calls " twenty cubits," is consider- 
ably greater at this end of the tunnel than at the 
other, — a fact which is apparently accounted for by 
the necessity of correcting errors of level, after the 
tunnel was finished, to give sufficient pitch to carry 
the water down. In those primitive days it is not 
surprising that such an error was made. There is 
evidence that the tunnel was dug by two parties 
working from opposite ends, as is the custom to-day. 
That they met in the centre of the mountain with 
such general accuracy speaks well for the engineer- 
ing skill of the time, and that they allowed too little 
for the drop of the stream is not at all strange. The 
result of this is that, in the end commonly visited 
by travelers, there is need of caution lest the unwary 
slip from the narrow ledge at the side into the sup- 
plementary cut thirty feet below — a fall not to be 



294 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

despised, either because of its chance of injury or 
because of the difficulty of getting the victim out 
again. So much, as Herodotus would say, for the 
water-conduit of the Samians. 

From the tunnel down to the ancient Heraeum, 
whither our ship had sailed to await us, proved to 
be a walk of something over two miles along a curv- 
ing beach, across which occasional streams made 
their shallow way from inland to the sea. It was a 
pleasant walk, despite occasional stony stretches ; for 
the rugged mountain chain inland presented con- 
stantly changing views on the one hand, while on 
the other, across the deep blue of the ^Egean, rose 
the commanding heights of Asia Minor, stretching 
away from the neighboring Mykale to the distant, 
and still snow-crowned, peaks of the Latmian range. 
Under the morning sun the prospect was indescrib- 
ably lovely, particularly across the sea to the bold 
coasts of Asia, the remote mountains being revealed 
in that delicate chiaroscuro which so often attends 
white peaks against the blue. Ahead was always the 
solitary column which is all that remains standing of 
the once vast temple of Hera, " the largest we ever 
have seen," according to the ingenuous and truthful 
Herodotus. 

There is a reason for holding the spot in an espe- 
cial manner sacred to Hera, for it is said by legend 



SAMOS AND BRANCHID^ 295 

that she was born on the banks of one of the little 
streams whose waters we splashed through in cross- 
ing the beach to her shrine. The temple itself we 
found to lie far back from the water's edge, its founda- 
tions so buried in the deposited earth that consider- 
able excavation has been necessary to reveal them. 
The one remaining column is not complete, but is 
still fairly lofty. It bears no capital, and its drums 
are slightly jostled out of place, so that it has a rather 
unfinished look, to which its lack of fluting contrib- 
utes ; for, as even the amateur knows, the fluting of 
Greek columns was never put on until the whole pil- 
lar was set up, and every joint of it ground so fine 
as to be invisible. We walked up to the ruin through 
the inevitable cutting, in which lay the inevitable nar- 
row-gauge track for the excavator's cars, but there 
was no activity to be seen. The excavation had pro- 
gressed so far as to leave little more to be done, or 
there was no more money, or something had inter- 
vened to put an end to the operations for the time. 
Not far away, however, along the beach, lay a few 
houses, which constituted the habitation of the dig- 
gers and of a few fishermen, whose seine boats were 
being warped up as we passed. 

The exploration of the great temple of Hera has re- 
vealed the not unusual fact that there had been two 
temples on the same spot at successive periods. They 



296 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

were not identical in location, but the later overlapped 
the earlier, traces of the latter being confined to its 
lowest foundation stones. Of the ruins of the later 
temple there was but slightly more visible, save for 
the one standing column and a multitude of drums, 
capitals, and bases lying about. The latter were of a 
type we had not previously seen. They were huge loz- 
enges of marble ornamented with horizontal grooves 
and resembling nothing so much as great cable drums 
partially wound — the effect of a multitude of narrow 
grooves in a slightly concave trough around the col- 
umn. They were of a noticeable whiteness, for the 
marble of which this temple was composed was not 
so rich in mineral substances as the Pentelic, and 
gave none of that golden brown effect so familiar in 
the Athenian temples. 

It was in this great Heraeum, which in size rivaled 
the great temples at Ephesus and at Branchidae, that 
the Samians deposited the brazen bowl filched from 
the Spartans, of which the ancients made so much. 
It appears that because of Crcesus having sought an 
alliance with Lacedsemonia, the inhabitants of that 
land desired to return the compliment by sending him 
a present. They caused a huge brass bowl to be made, 
adorned with many figures and capable of holding 
three hundred amphorse. This they dispatched to 
Sardis. But as the ship bearing it was passing Samos 




COLUMN BASES. SAMOS 




CARVED COLUMX-BASE. BRANCHIUiE 



SAMOS AND BRANCHID^ 297 

on her way, the Samians came out in force, seized the 
ship, and carried the great bowl off to the temple, 
where it was consecrated to the uses of the goddess. 
That the Samians stole it thus was of course indig- 
nantly denied, — the islanders retorting that the bowl 
was sold them by the Spartans when they discovered 
that Crcesus had fallen before Cyrus and was no 
longer an ally to be desired. No trace of any such 
relic of course is to be seen there now. In fact there 
is very little to recall the former greatness of the place 
but the silent and lonely column and a very diminutive 
museum standing near the beach, which contains dis- 
appointingly little. It is, as a matter of fact, no more 
than a dark shed, similar in appearance to the rest 
of the houses of the hamlet. 

The steamer was waiting near by in the sheltered 
waters of the sound, and as we were desirous of visit- 
ing the temple at Branchidae that same afternoon, 
we left Samos and continued our voyage. Under 
that wonderfully clear sky the beauty of both shores 
was indescribable. The Asian coast, toward which we 
now bore our way, was, however, the grander of the 
two, with its foreground of plains and meadows and 
its magnificent background of imposing mountains 
stretching far into the interior and losing themselves 
in the unimagined distances beyond. The sun-kissed 
ripples of the sea were of that incredible blue that one 



298 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

never ceases to marvel at in the Mediterranean, and 
it was the sudden change from this color to a well- 
defined area of muddy yellow in the waters through 
which we glided that called attention to the mouth 
of the Maeander on the shore. That proverbially 
crooked and winding stream discharges so large a 
bulk of soil in projecting itself into the sea that the 
surface is discolored for a considerable distance off 
shore; and through this our steamer took her way, 
always nearing the low-lying beach, until we descried 
a projecting headland, and rounded it into waters as 
calm as those of a pond. Here we dropped anchor 
and once again proceeded to the land, setting our 
feet for the first time on the shores of Asia. 

Samos was, of course, still to be seen to the north- 
west, like a dark blue cloud rising from a tossing sea. 
Before us, glowing in the afternoon sun, stretched a 
long expanse of open seashore meadow, undulating 
here and there, almost devoid of trees, but thickly 
covered with tracts of shrubs and bushes, through 
which we pushed our way until we came upon an 
isolated farmhouse and a path leading off over the 
moor. It was a mere cart-track through the green of 
the fields, leading toward a distant hillock, on which 
we could from afar make out the slowly waving arms 
of windmills and indications of a small town. None 
of the many rambles we took in the Greek islands 



SAMOS AND BRANCHID^ 299 

surpassed this two-mile walk for pure pleasure. The 
air was balmy yet cool. The fields were spangled 
with flowers, — wild orchids, iris, gladioli, and many 
others. There were no gray hills, save so far in the 
distance that they had become purple and had lost 
their bareness. All around was a deserted yet plea- 
sant and pastoral country — deserving, none the less, 
the general name of moor. 

What few people we met on the way were farmers 
and shepherds, leading pastoral lives in the little brush 
wigwams so common in Greek uplands in the sum- 
mer months. They gave us the usual cheerful good- 
day, and looked after our invading host with wonder- 
ing eyes as we streamed off over the rolling country 
in the general direction of Branchidae. 

That ancient site appeared at last on a hillock over- 
looking the ocean. A small and mean hamlet had 
largely swallowed up the immediate environs of the 
famous temple that once stood there, contrasting 
strangely with the remaining columns that soon came 
into view over the roofs, as we drew near, attended 
by an increasing army of the youth. The name of 
the little modern village on the spot we never knew. 
Anciently this was the site of the temple of Apollo 
Didymeus, erected by the Branchidae, — a clan of the 
neighborhood of ancient Miletus who claimed descent 
from Branchus. The temple of Apollo which had for- 



300 GREECE AND THE .EGEAN ISLANDS 

merly stood upon the site was destroyed in some way 
in the sixth century before Christ, and the Branchidse 
set out to erect a shrine that they boasted should rival 
the temple of Diana at Ephesus in size and in orna- 
mentation. Nor was this an inappropriate desire, since 
Apollo and Diana — or Artemis, as we ought to call 
her — were twins, whence indeed the name " Didy- 
meus " was applied to the temple on the spot. Un- 
fortunately the great temple which the Branchidae 
designed was never completed, simply because of the 
vastness of the plan. Before the work was done, 
Apollo had ceased to be so general an object of ven- 
eration, and what had been planned to be his most 
notable shrine fell into gradual ruin and decay. 

It has not been sufficient, however, to destroy the 
beauty of much that the Branchidse accomplished 
during the centuries that the work was progressing, 
for it is stated that several hundred years were spent 
in adorning the site. The fact that one of the few 
columns still standing and still bearing its crowning 
capital is unfluted bears silent testimony to the fact 
that the temple never was completed. Of the finished 
columns it is impossible to overstate their grace and 
lightness or the elegance of the carving on their bases, 
which apparently were designed to be different one 
from another. The pillars that remain are of great 
height and remarkable slenderness. Nineteen drums 



SAMOS AND BRANCHID^ 301 

were employed in building them. The bases, of which 
many are to be seen lying about, and some m situ, 
display the most delicate tracery and carving im- 
aginable, some being adorned with round bands of 
relief, and others divided into facets, making the base 
dodecagonal instead of round, each panel bearing a 
different and highly ornate design. Close by we found 
the remains of a huge stone face, or mask, apparently 
designed as a portion of the adornment of the cornice 
and presumably one of the metopes of the temple. 

The mass of debris of the great structure has been 
heaped up for so long that a sort of conical hill rises 
in the midst of it ; and on this has been built a tower 
from which one may look down on the ground plan 
so far as it remains. The major part of the ruin, 
however, is at its eastern end, the front, presumably, 
where the only standing columns are to be seen, ris- 
ing gracefully from a terrace which has been care- 
fully uncovered by the explorers. Enough remains 
to give an idea of the immense size projected for the 
building, and better still enough to give an idea 
of the elegance with which the ancients proposed 
to adorn it, that the Ephesians need not eclipse the 
Milesians in honoring the twin gods. Of the rows of 
statues that once lined the road from the sea to the 
shrine, one is to be seen in the British Museum — a 
curious sitting colossus of quaintly archaic workman- 



302 GREECE AND THE AEGEAN ISLANDS 

ship, and somewhat suggestive, to my own mind, of 
an Egyptian influence in the squat modeling of the 
figure. 

As one might expect of a shrine sacred to Apollo, 
there seems to have been an oracle of some repute 
here; for Croesus, who was credulous in the extreme 
where oracles were concerned, sent hither for advice 
on various occasions, and dedicated a treasure here 
that was similar to the great wealth he bestowed 
upon the shrine at Delphi. Furthermore one Neco, 
who had been engaged in digging a canal to connect 
the Nile with the Red Sea, — a prototype of the Suez, 
— dedicated the clothes he wore during that period 
to the god at the temple of the Branchidae. Thus 
while the site never attained the fame among Gre- 
cians that was accorded the Delphian, it nevertheless 
seems to have inspired a great deal of reverence 
among the inhabitants of Asia Minor and even of 
Egypt, which may easily account for the elaborate 
care the Branchidae proposed to bestow and did 
bestow upon it. 

Our inspection of the temple and the surrounding 
town was the source of immense interest upon the part 
of the infantile population, of which the number is enor- 
mous. The entire pit around the excavations was lined 
three deep with boys and girls, the oldest not over 
fifteen, who surveyed our party with open-mouthed 



SAMOS AND BRANCHID^ 303 

amazement. They escorted us to the city gates, and 
a small detachment accompanied us on the way back 
over the moor to the landing, hauling a protesting 
bear-cub, whose mother had been shot the week be- 
fore somewhere in the mountains of Latmos by some 
modern Nimrod, and whose wails indicated the pre- 
sence of a capable pair of lungs in his small and furry 
body. He was taken aboard and became the ship's 
pet forthwith, seemingly content with his lot and de- 
cidedly partial to sweetmeats. 

The walk back over that vast and silent meadow in 
the twilight was one never to be forgotten. There was 
something mystical in the deserted plain, in the clumps 
of bushes taking on strange shapes in the growing 
dusk, in the great orb of the moon rising over the ser- 
rated tops of the distant mountains of the interior — 
and last, but not least, in the roaring fire which the 
boatmen had kindled on the rocks to indicate the land- 
ing place as the dark drew on. We pushed off, three 
boatloads of tired but happy voyagers, leaving the fire 
leaping and crackling on the shore, illuminating with 
a red glare the rugged rocks, and casting gigantic and 
awful shadows on the sea. 



CHAPTER XVI. COS AND CNIDOS 



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FROM the little harbor where we had found shelter 
for our landing to visit Branchidae it proved but 
a few hours' steaming to Cos, which was scheduled as 
our next stopping place. Like Samos, Cos lies close 
to the Asia Minor shore. The chief city, which bears 
the same name as the island, unchanged from ancient 
times, proved to be a formidable looking place by rea- 
son of its great walls and moles, recalling the Cretan 
cities much more forcibly than the Samos town had 
done ; for the yellowish-white fortresses which flank 
the narrow inner harbor of Cos resemble both in color 
and architecture the outworks that were thrown up to 
protect the ports of Candia and Canea. Later in the 
day it was borne in upon us that these walls were by 
no means uncommon in the vicinity, and that they bore 
witness to the visits of the Crusaders ; for the great 
walls and castle at Halicarnassus not far away were 
very similar to the forts of Cos, and with the best of 
reasons, since they were the work of the same hands. 



COS AND CNIDOS 305 

— of the so-called "Knights of Rhodes," who once 
settled in these regions and built strongholds that for 
those times were impregnable enough. Our next day 
or two brought us often in contact with the relics of 
these stout old knights, who were variously known as 
of Rhodes, or of St. John, and, last of all, of Malta. 
As far as Cos was concerned, the knightly fortress was 
chiefly remarkable from the water, as we steamed past 
the frowning battlements of buff and dropped anchor 
in the open roadstead before the city ; for, as is gen- 
erally the case with these old towns, there is at Cos no 
actual harborage for a steamer of modern draught, 
whatever might have been the case anciently when 
ships were small. 

The morning sun revealed the city itself spreading 
out behind the fortress, in a great splash of dazzling 
white amidst the green of the island verdure, its domes 
and minarets interspersed with the tops of waving 
trees. Behind the city, the land rose gradually to the 
base of a long range of green hills stretching off to the 
southward and into the interior of the island. It was 
easily the most fertile and agreeable land we had yet 
encountered in our ^gean pilgrimage, and so lovely 
that we almost forgot that it was Turkish and that we 
had been warned not to separate far from one another 
on going ashore for fear of complications and loss of 
the road. However it was Turkish, this time, pure and 



3o6 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

unadulterated, and the examination of our papers and 
passports was no idle formality, but was performed 
with owl-like solemnity by a local dignitary black- 
mustachioed and red-fezzed. While this was pro- 
ceeding the members of our party stood huddled be- 
hind a wicket gate barring egress from the landing 
stage and speculated on the probability of being haled 
to the dungeons, which might easily be imagined as 
damp and gloomy behind the neighboring yellow 
walls of stone. 

The Sultan's representative being fully satisfied 
that we might safely be permitted to enter the island, 
the gate was thrown back, and in a quaking body we 
departed through a stone arcade in which our feet 
echoed and reechoed valiantly, past rows of natives 
sipping coffee and smoking the nargileh in the shade, 
and thence through a stone archwa)'- into a spacious 
public square, paved with cobble-stones and domi- 
nated by the most gigantic and venerable plane tree 
imaginable. Its enormous trunk stood full in the cen- 
tre of the square, rising from a sort of stone dais, in 
the sides of which were dripping stone fountains, 
deeply incrusted with the green mildew of age. Over- 
head, even to the uttermost parts of the square, the 
branches spread a curtain of fresh green leaves. They 
were marvelous branches — great, gnarled, twisted 
limbs, that were as large in themselves as the trunk of 




TREE OF HIPPOCRATES. COS 



COS AND CNIDOS 307 

a very respectable tree, and shored up with a forest 
of poles. Actual measurement of the circumference of 
the trunk itself revealed it to be something over forty 
feet in girth, and it was not difficult to believe the le- 
gend that this impressive tree really did date back to 
the time of Hippocrates, the great physician of Cos, 
who was born in the island long before the dawn of 
the Christian era. In any event, the great plane of Cos 
is called to this day the " tree of Hippocrates," whether 
it has any real connection with that eminent father of 
medicine or not. 

We left the shady square by a narrow and roughly 
paved street, little wider than an alley and lined with 
whitewashed houses, closely set. It wound aimlessly 
along through the thickly settled portion of the city, 
and at last opened out into the country-side, where 
the houses grew fewer and other splendid trees became 
more numerous, generally shading wayside fountains, 
beside which crouched veiled native women gossip- 
ing over their water-jars. A pair of baggy-trousered 
soldiers went with us on the road, partly as overseers, 
no doubt, but chiefly as guides and protectors — the 
latter office proving quite needless save for the occa- 
sional expert kicking of a barking cur from some 
■wayside hovel. They proved to be a friendly pair, 
although of course conversation with them was im- 
possible, and a lively exchange of cigarettes and to- 



3o8 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

bacco was kept up as we walked briskly along out of 
the city and into the open country that lay toward 
the hills. Their chief curiosity was a kind of inex- 
tinguishable match, which proved exceedingly useful 
for smokers bothered by the lively morning breeze. 
They were flat matches, seemingly made of rude 
brown paper such as butchers at home used to em- 
ploy for wrapping up raw meat. The edges were ser- 
rated, and when once the match was lighted it burned 
without apparent flame and with but little smoke until 
the entire fabric was consumed. 

The object of this walk, which proved to be of some- 
thing like three or four miles into the suburbs of 
Cos, was to view the remnants of the famous health 
temple, sacred, of course, to Asklepios. We found it 
situated on an elevation looking down across a smil- 
ing plain to the sea, with the white walls and roofs 
of Cos a trifle to one side. It was not a prospect to 
be forgotten. It was a bright day, but with sufficient 
haze in the air to give to the other islands visible 
across the intervening water an amethystine quality, 
and to make the distant summits in Asia Minor faint 
and ethereal. The nearer green of the fields, the 
purple of the sea, and the delicate hues of the islands 
and far-away peaks, held us for a long time before 
turning to the curious ruin of the temple, which, as 
usual, was less a temple than a hospital. 



COS AND CNIDOS 309 

Little remains of it, save for the foundations. Three 
enormous terraces, faced with flights of steps of easy- 
grade, led up to the main sanctuary of the god, com- 
paratively little of which remains to be seen. Various 
smaller buildings, shrines for allied divinities, porticoes 
for the sick, apartments for the priests, treasuries and 
the like, are readily distinguishable, and serve to re- 
veal what an extensive establishment the health tem- 
ple was in its time. Restorations of it, on paper, reveal 
it as having been probably most impressive, both 
architecturally and by reason of its commanding po- 
sition, which was not only admirable by nature but 
accentuated by the long approach over the three suc- 
cessive terraces to the many-columned main building 
above. 

Of the numerous smaller structures lying about the 
precinct, the most curious and interesting were the 
subterranean treasuries — if that is the proper name 
for them — which have been discovered at the foot 
of the slope. They apparently consist of vaults in the 
earth, each covered over with a massive stone slab. 
The slab is removable, but only at great pains. A 
circular hole pierces it through the centre, suitable for 
dropping money or other valuables into the recepta- 
cle beneath and for inserting the tackle with which 
to lift the rock when the treasury was to be opened. 
The vast weight of the stone and the time required 



3IO GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

for raising it would have been ample guarantee 
against unauthorized visits to the treasury. Other 
theories accounting for these underground chambers 
and their curious coverings have been advanced — 
the most fantastic one being the supposition that these 
were the chambers devoted to housing the sacred 
serpents of the god, the holes serving for their emer- 
gence and for the insertion of food ! But while the 
cult of Asklepios certainly does appear to have made 
use of the sacred snakes as a part of its mummery, it 
seems hardly likely that these subterranean cavities 
were used for any such purpose. 

As for the practice of medicine in Cos, it is widely 
believed to have been of a sensible and even of an 
" ethical " sort, largely devoid of mere reliance on 
idle superstition or religious formalism for its cura- 
tive effects, though unquestionably employing these, 
as was not only the case in ancient times, but as even 
persists to-day in some localities of the archipelago. 
The religious ceremonies, which generally took the 
form of sleeping in the sacred precincts in the hope 
of being divinely healed, appear to have been sup- 
plemented at Cos by the employment of means of 
healing that were rudely scientific. Hippocrates, the 
most celebrated of the Coan physicians, has left abun- 
dant proof that he was no mere charlatan, but a 
common-sense doctor, whose contributions to medical 



COS AND CNIDOS 311 

science have not by any means entirely passed out of 
esteem. Reference has been made hitherto to the cus- 
tom of depositing in the temple anatomical specimens 
representing the parts healed, as votive offerings from 
grateful patients — a custom which persists in the 
modern Greek church, as everybody who examines 
the altar-screen of any such church will speedily 
discover. 

The extreme veneration of Asklepios at Cos is 
doubtless to be explained by the fact that Cos was 
an Epidaurian colony ; for the Epidaurians claimed 
that the healing god was born in the hills overlook- 
ing their valley in the Peloponnesus. At any rate the 
health temple at Cos and the great sanitarium at Epi- 
daurus shared the highest celebrity in ancient times 
as resorts for the sick ; and in each case there are 
traces to show that they were sites devoted not only 
to the worship of a deity, but to the ministration unto 
the ailing by physical means, as far as such means 
were then understood. 

Cos, however, was far from basing her sole claim 
to ancient celebrity on her physicians and hospitals. 
Her embroideries rivaled the more famous Rhodian 
work, and she was an early home of culture and re- 
sort of noted students, not only of medicine, but of 
rhetoric, grammar, poetry, philosophy, and science. 
Ptolemy II, otherwise known as Ptolemy Philadel- 



312 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

phus, is known to have studied here, and it is not at 
all improbable that the Sicilian poet, Theocritus, was 
a fellow student with him. For it is known that The- 
ocritus was a student at Cos at some time, and he 
was later summoned to Ptolemy's Egyptian court, 
where he wrote the epithalamium for the unholy mar- 
riage between Philadelphus and his sister. Not a lit- 
tle of the present knowledge of ancient Cos is due to 
the writings that Theocritus left as the result of his 
student days in the island. 

The curator of antiquities in charge of the excava- 
tions at the Asklepeion took us in charge on our re- 
turn walk and led us through the city to his own 
home, where, although we were on Turkish soil, we 
had a taste of real Greek hospitality. Our party was 
numerous enough to appall any unsuspecting hostess, 
but we were ushered into the great upper room of 
the house, with no trace of dismay on the part of the 
wife and daughter. It was a huge room, scrupulously 
neat and clean, and the forty or so included in our 
number found chairs ranged in line about the apart- 
ment, where we sat at ease examining the fragments 
that the curator had to show from the mass of inscrip- 
tions recovered from the temple. Meantime, after the 
national custom, the eldest daughter served refresh- 
ment to each in turn, consisting of preserved quince, 
glasses of mastika, and huge tumblers of water. It 



COS AND CNIDOS 313 

was a stately ceremony, each helping himself gravely 
to the quince from the same dish, and sipping the 
cordial, while the mother bustled about supplying 
fresh spoons. And with a general exchange of cards 
and such good wishes as were to be expressed in 
limited traveler's Greek, we departed to the landing 
and again embarked. 

We designed to push on to Cnidos at once, and to 
climb the heights of that ancient promontory of Asia 
Minor in the late afternoon. But inasmuch as Hali- 
carnassus, the native city of Herodotus, lay directly 
on the way, we sailed into its capacious harbor and 
out again without stopping, for the sake of such 
glance at the site as might be had from the water. 
The bay on which the city lies — it is now called 
Boudrun — is wonderfully beautiful, running well into 
the mainland, while the city itself, with its great white 
castle of the Knights of St. John as the central feature, 
lies at the inmost end. Of the castle we were able to 
get a very good view, going close enough to arouse 
the violent excitement of a gesticulating Turkish 
official who came out in a tiny boat, bravely decked 
with the crescent flag, to show us where to anchor if 
we so desired. The site of the famous Mausoleum 
was pointed out from the deck, and most of us were 
confident that we saw it, although it was not easy to 
find. The remains of this incomparably magnificent 



314 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

tomb, designed for King Mausolus, are, as everybody 
knows, to be seen in the British Museum to-day. 

It was but a few miles farther to the promontory 
of Cnidos, and we dropped anchor there in mid- 
afternoon, in one of the double bays for which the 
ancient naval station was famous. The bays are still 
separated by a narrow isthmus — the same which the 
ancients tried in vain to sever. The story goes that 
the drilling of the rocks caused such a flying of frag- 
ments as to endanger the eyes of the workmen, and 
the oracle when questioned dissuaded them from con- 
tinuing the work, saying "Zeus could have made the 
land an island if he had intended so to do." Hence 
the two little harbors remain, one on either side 
of the neck of land that juts into the sea. They were 
used as anchorage for triremes and merchant ships 
respectively, when Cnidos was a power in the world. 
To-day the spot is absolutely deserted, and we found 
both the diminutive bays devoid of all trace of life, 
until at evening a passing fisherman came in and 
made all snug for the night. 

Above the waters of the harbor towered the com- 
manding rock of the Cnidian acropolis, something 
like twelve hundred feet in height — a bare and for- 
bidding rock, indeed. Of the town and the temples 
that once clustered along its base nothing was to be 
seen. Man has long ago abandoned this spot and left 



COS AND CNIDOS 315 

it absolutely untenanted save by memories. It was in 
ancient times a favorite haunt of Aphrodite, and three 
temples did honor to that goddess on the knolls above 
the sea. Here also stood the marble Aphrodite carved 
by Praxiteles, and esteemed his masterpiece by many. 
It was carried off to Constantinople centuries ago, and 
perished miserably in a fire in that city in 1641. 

Our three boatloads landed with no little difficulty 
on the abrupt rocks of the shore, being somewhat put 
to it to avoid sundry submerged boulders lying just 
off the land. It was a sharp scramble from the water's 
edge to the narrow and ascending shelf above, on 
which the temples had stood. The ruins of them lay 
buried in tall grasses and in huge clumps of daisies, 
the latter growing in the most remarkable profusion. 
With a single sweep of the knife I cut a prodigious 
armful of them, and the dining saloon that night was 
made a perfect bower by the wild flowers that the re- 
turning party brought back with them. 

It was one of the days when the non-archaeological 
section of the party hastily left the remnants of an- 
cient greatness below and set out precipitately for a 
climb, for the prospect of a view from the overshad- 
owing cliff above was promising. It proved the most 
formidable ascent that we undertook in all our ^gean 
cruising. Anciently there was a gradual ascent by 
means of a zigzag causeway to the fortified heights 



3i6 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

above, but the majority of us disregarded it and struck 
off up the steep toward the summit. It is not a wise 
plan for any but hardened climbers, for the slope soon 
became so sharp that it made one giddy to look back 
down the mountain, and the footing was often diffi- 
cult because of the shelving stone and fragments of 
loose rock. Small bushes were the only growth, and 
they were often eagerly seized upon to give the need- 
ful purchase to lift us onward and upward. The sum- 
mit, however, amply rewarded our toil. It was easier 
going toward the top, for we found the old road and 
rose more gradually toward the point where the an- 
cient walls began. 

From the pinnacle of the rock the sweep of the view 
was indescribably fine. The sun was sinking rapidly 
to the horizon, illuminating the islands and the sea. 
The wind had dropped, the haze had disappeared, and 
the shore line of Asia Minor stretched away, clear cut, 
in either direction. We were practically at the south- 
west corner of the peninsula. The rugged headlands 
retreated to the north and to the east from our feet, 
while inland piled the impressive interior mountains 
rearing their snow-capped heads against the blue 
evening dusk. Over the ^gean, dark blue and violet 
islands rose from a sea of molten gold. At our feet lay 
the twin harbors and our steamer, looking like a toy 
ship, the thin smoke of her funnel rising in a blue wisp 



COS AND CNIDOS 317 

into the silent evening air. The fishermen from the 
tiny smack that had sought a night's berth there had 
kindled a gleaming fire on the beach. Along the sharp 
spine of the promontory we could see the ancient line 
of wall, rising and falling alongthe summit and flanked 
here and there by ruined towers — a stupendous en- 
gineering work of a nation long dead. It was all im- 
pressively silent, and deserted save for ourselves. The 
course of empire had indeed taken its westward way 
and left once powerful Cnidos a barren waste. 

But the darkness coming suddenly in these latitudes 
at this season warned us to descend in haste to the 
fire that was signaling us from the landing, and we 
slipped and slid down the old causeway to the boats. 
That night the moon was at the full, and we sat late 
on the after-deck enjoying the incomparable brilliancy 
of the light on sea and cliffs, shining as of old on a time- 
defying and rock-bound coast, but on a coast no longer 
teeming with life and harbors no longer alive with 
ships. And at midnight the wheezing of the engines 
and the jarring of the screw gave notice that we were 
slipping out of the harbor of Cnidos and out into the 
sea, to Rhodes. 



CHAPTER XVII. RHODES 




IT was our purpose to land on Rhodes the isle, not 
at Rhodes the town. To visit the famous north- 
ern city where once stood the Colossus would have 
been highly agreeable had opportunity presented 
itself; but as it was we planned to coast along the 
southeasterly side of Rhodes and make our landing 
at the little less celebrated and probably even more 
picturesque site of Lindos. So in the morning we 
woke to find our vessel rolling merrily in a cross sea 
just oS the entrance to the little bay that serves Lin- 
dos for a harbor, — a sea that stripped our breakfast 
table of its few dishes and converted the floor of the 
saloon into a sea of broken crockery. The waters of 
the bay proved calm enough when we had slid past 
the imposing promontory on which stood the acro- 
polis of ancient Lindos, and felt our way across the 
rapidly shoaling waters to a safe anchorage. The wa- 
ter was of a wonderful clarity as well as of remarkable 
blueness, the bottom being visible for many fathoms 



RHODES 319 

and seeming much more shoal than was the case in 
fact. We were able to go quite close to shore before 
anchoring, and found ourselves in good shelter 
from the wind that was then blowing, although well 
outside the tiny inner port which lay at the foot of a 
steep bluff. Towering above the whole town stood 
the precipitous and seemingly inaccessible acropolis, 
its steep sides running down to the sea, the rich 
redness of the rock contrasting on the one hand 
with the matchless blue of the ^gean, and on the 
other with the pure whiteness of the buildings of 
the town. The summit of the promontory was 
crowned with the ruin of a castle of the Knights of 
Rhodes, who had once made this a famous strong- 
hold in the Middle Ages. In fact the residence of the 
knights had obliterated the more ancient remnants 
of the classic period, which included a temple of 
Athena ; and the work of exhuming the Greek ruins 
from under the debris of the Crusaders' fortress was 
only just beginning when we landed there. 

From the ship, the most conspicuous object on the 
heights was the ruined castle of St. John, the portal of 
which, giving the sole means of access to the plateau 
on top of the promontory, was plainly to be seen as 
we sailed in. It gave the impression of yellowish- 
brown sandstone from below, a color which it shared 
with the goodly battlements that frowned down from 



320 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

all sides of the citadel, even where the abruptness of 
the declivity for something like three hundred feet 
made battlements a seeming work of supererogation. 
Nestling under the shadow of the mighty rock on the 
landward side lay the modern village of Lindos itself, 
apparently freshly whitewashed and gleaming in the 
sun wherever the rock failed to shelter it from the 
morning warmth. It was one of those marvelously 
brilliant days that have made the Greek atmosphere 
so famous — cloudless and clear, with that clearness 
that reveals distant objects so distinctly, yet so softly 
withal. As for the nearer prospects, they were almost 
trying to the eyes, under the forenoon glare beating 
down on that immaculate array of close-set white 
houses and shops. 

Our boats set off shoreward across a placid sheet of 
water that varied from a deep indigo at the ship to 
the palest of greens as it surged among the fringes of 
slippery rock along the foot of the bluff. The landing 
stage was but a narrow shelf of pebbly beach, from 
which a rough paved way led steeply up to the town 
just above the sea. The contrast of the blue sky and 
the white purity of the town was dazzling in the ex- 
treme, and the glare accounted in a measure for the 
veiled women and sore-eyed children we met in the 
courtyards of the town. Our own eyes soon ached 
sufficiently to make us walk in single file along the 



RHODES 321 

shady side of the high-walled streets, looking chiefly 
at the shadow and only occasionally at the houses and 
shops as we wound along into the heart of the village. 
But even these occasional glimpses revealed the most 
fascinating of little details in the local architecture, 
curious Gothic and Moorish windows surviving from 
a bygone day and ornamented with the border of 
"rope" pattern worked in the stone. Almost every- 
thing had been covered with the dazzling whitewash, 
save here and there a relic of former days which 
was allowed to retain the natural color of the native 
rock. 

In most of the cases the actual dwellings were set 
well back from the streets, which were extremely nar- 
row and crooked. Between the highway and the house 
was invariably a tiny courtyard, screened from the view 
of passers by a lofty wall, always of white. The yards 
were occasionally to be peered into, however, through 
a gate left temptingly ajar. These diminutive courts 
were floored with pebble work in black and white de- 
signs throughout their extent, save where the matron 
of the house had a flower bed under cultivation. These 
beds and boxes of flowers were a riot of color and 
filled the air with fragrance, while the green foliage 
furnished a lively contrast with the dead white of the 
walls behind. 

In the doorways of the dwellings within could be 



322 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

seen groups of bashful women, and shy children hid- 
ing in their mothers' skirts, who looked furtively at us 
as we stopped hesitatingly before their gates. Grow- 
ing bolder we finally ventured to set foot within the 
courtyards now and then, charmed with the sweetness 
of the tiny gardens ; and at length we made bold to 
enter and to walk over the pleasant firmness of the 
pebbly pavements of white and black tracery to the 
doorways, where the women gave a timid but wel- 
coming good-day and bade us come in. The absence 
of men was notable. We were later told that the male 
population of Lindos was temporarily away, being 
largely employed in the construction of the great dam 
at Assouan, on the Nile ; and that in consequence the 
women had practically the sole charge in Lindos at 
the time, which may have accounted for the immacu- 
lateness of everything. We were likewise told that in 
the evening a certain hour was reserved for the sole 
use of the women, who might be free to wander at will 
through the streets, chiefly to get water for their house- 
holds, without fear of molestation. Lindos for the time 
was an Adamless Eden, and as spick and span a town 
as it would be possible to find on earth. 

The houses into which we were welcomed proved 
to be as clean within as without. The lower story ap- 
parently consisted as a general thing of a single great 
room, with possibly a smaller apartment back of it for 



RHODES 323 

cooking. This large room was the living room and 
sleeping room as well. The floor was scrubbed until 
its boards shone. The walls were of the universal 
white. On one side of the room — and occasionally on 
both sides — was to be seen a sort of dais, or elevated 
platform, which apparently served for the family bed. 
The bedding, including blankets and rugs of barbaric 
splendor, was neatly piled on the platform or hung 
over the railing of it. And it was here, according to 
all appearance, that the entire household retired to rest 
in a body at night, in harmonious contiguity. 

What interested us most of all, however, was the 
decoration of the rooms. Nearly every one that we 
entered was adorned with numerous plates hung on 
the wall in great profusion, seldom more than two 
being of the same pattern, and including all sorts of 
designs, from the valuable Rhodian down to the com- 
mon " willow " patterns of our own grandmothers' 
collections at home. This heterogeneous array of 
plates puzzled us not a little at first. It was so uni- 
versal among the householders, and representative of 
so wide a field of the ceramic art, that some expla- 
nation of the presence of these plates seemed neces- 
sary. Later it developed that the Rhodian custom 
has long been to mark the birth of each child by the 
addition of a plate to the family collection, the fewer 
duplicates the better. The agglomeration of these 



324 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

dishes that we saw represented the family trees for 
generations. Despite the connection presumably ex- 
isting between the plates and the family history, how- 
ever, we found the women not reluctant to part with 
specimens for a price, and we carried away not a few. 
The comparatively rare instances in which we found 
any of the genuine and celebrated Rhodian ware, how- 
ever, proved that its great value was well known by 
the native women. Their prices in such cases proved 
prohibitive, especially in view of the risk of breakage 
involved in getting the plates home from so distant 
an island. These plates, notable for the beauty of their 
design and for the distinguishing rose pattern in the 
centre, are often to be found in museum collections, 
and their great rarity and consequent value unfits 
them for other uses than those of the collector. The 
few that we found in Lindos were to be had for 
prices equivalent to about eighty dollars apiece in our 
money, which seemed exorbitant until we were later 
told that even one hundred dollars would have been 
reasonable enough for some of the finer specimens. 
Indeed, it is getting to be rather unusual to find one 
of these for sale at all. 

There are opportunities enough, as we discovered, 
to purchase the famous Rhodian embroidery ; but we 
were cautioned to leave the bargaining to experts 
familiar with values, for the infrequent visitor is al- 



RHODES 325 

most certain to be imposed upon in any such trans- 
action. These embroideries, or at least the older ones, 
are very elaborate creations of colored wools on a 
background of unbleached linen, the colors being re- 
markably rich and fresh despite their age, an age 
that is eloquently testified to by the stains and worn 
places in the cloth. The subject of Rhodian em- 
broidery is a most interesting one, but too intricate 
and technical to be gone into here. The study of the 
growth of certain well-defined groups of convention- 
alized figures might well furnish material for a con- 
siderable body of literature, if it has not already done 
so. We were informed that the wealth of Rhodian 
embroidery was due to the ancient custom — which 
may still exist among the Rhodian girls — to begin 
the preparation of the nuptial gear at a tender age, 
they plying their needles almost daily, until by the 
time they are marriageable they have accumulated a 
surprising amount of bizarre blankets, cloths, and bits 
of finery for their dower chests. 

The leisurely progress through the town required 
some time, occupied as we were by frequent visits to 
the odd little houses in the quest of curious wares to 
carry away. And by the time we had reached the 
centre of the town, the hot sun made us glad indeed 
to step under a spacious arch, washed underneath 
with a sky-blue tint which was restful to our tired 



326 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

eyes, and thence to go into the cool and aromatic 
quiet of a very old Greek church, where the glare of 
the sun on the white buildings could be forgotten. 
Most notable of all the curious things shown us by 
the attendant priest was the quaintly carved roof, 
which, after so much excessive light out of doors, it 
was decidedly difficult to see at all in the grateful 
gloom of the church. 

We delayed but a little while there, for the acro- 
polis above was the ultimate goal of our visit to the 
spot. Thither we were conducted by the Danish gen- 
tleman who had charge of the investigations being 
prosecuted there. The way led out of the dense build- 
ings of the town and along the base of the over- 
hanging cliff to the side toward the open sea, always 
upward and above the flat roofs of the little town 
below, until we came to the foot of the stairway of 
stone leading up through a defile in the rock to the 
arched portal of the castle on the height. It was a 
long flight of steps, one side against the smooth face 
of the rock, the other unprotected. And at the foot 
of the impressive approach to the citadel was one of 
the most interesting of the discoveries made on the 
site. It was a gigantic sculpture in bas-relief hewn out 
of the face of the cliff itself and representing, in " life 
size," so to speak, the stern of an ancient trireme. The 
relief was sufficiently high to give a flat space on what 



RHODES 



327 



was intended to be the deck of the ship, supposably 
as a pedestal for some statue which has disappeared. 
The curved end of the trireme with its sustaining 
bolt, the seat of the helmsman, and a blade of one of 
the oars, were still intact, and as a large representa- 




SCULPTURED TRIREME IN ROCK AT LINDOS 
Prom a Sketch by the Author 

tion of a classic ship the sculpture is doubtless unique. 
To all intents and purposes it is as perfect to-day as 
when the artists first carved it. 

In the grateful shade of the rock we sat and listened 



328 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

to the description of the archaeological work done on 
the spot by the Danes, which has not, at this writing, 
been officially published, and therefore seems not 
proper matter for inexpert discussion here. One in- 
teresting fact, however, which we were told, was that, 
by means of certain records deciphered from tablets 
found on the acropolis, it had been possible to fix 
definitely the date of the statue of the Laocoon as 
a work of the first century before Christ. This was 
established by the list of the names of the priests, 
and of the sculptors who worked for them, at periods 
which it proved possible to fix with a remarkable 
degree of exactness. 

We ascended to the height above, where we were 
permitted to wander at will among the ruins. As 
from below, the chief features were those of the me- 
dieval period, which had so largely swallowed up the 
temple of Athena. Nevertheless the excavators had 
restored enough of the original site from its cover- ^ 
ing of debris to reveal the vestiges of the old temple 
and an imposing propylaea, with traces enough in 
fragmentary form to enable making drawings of the 
structures as they probably appeared to the ancient 
eye. For the rest the chief interest centred in the 
relics of the abode of the knights. Just at the head 
of the grand entrance stairway was the tower which 
defended the acropolis on its one accessible side. The 







ARCHED PORTAL OF ACROPOLIS. LINDOS 



RHODES 329 

arched portal is very nearly perfect still, and one 
passes under it, across a sort of moat, by means of an 
improvised bridge of planks, where once, no doubt, 
a drawbridge served to admit or to bar out at the 
will of the Grand Master of the ancient commandery. 
Beyond the entrance hall lay a succession of vaulted 
halls and chambers leading around to the open pre- 
cincts of the acropolis, the most evidently well-pre- 
served buildings being the chapel of St. John and the 
house once occupied by the Grand Master himself. 
All were of the brownish native rock, and were un- 
mistakably medieval in their general style of archi- 
tecture. On the open terraces above the entrance, 
little remained to be seen save the heaps of debris 
and the faint traces of the classic temples. But most 
impressive of all was the sheer drop of the rock on 
all sides around the acropolis and the views off to 
sea and inland over Rhodes. The precipices every- 
where, save at the entrance alone, fell away perpen- 
dicularly to the sea, which murmured two or three 
hundred feet below. Nevertheless, despite the evident 
hopelessness of ever scaling the height, the pains- 
taking knights had built a wall with battlements all 
about, less serviceable as protecting the inhabitants 
against assault than for preserving them from fall- 
ing over to a certain and awful death themselves. 
The drop on the landward side was considerably less. 



330 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

but quite as steep and quite as impregnable to would- 
be scaling parties. Even a few munitions of war, in 
the shape of rounded stones about the size of old- 
fashioned cannon balls seen in our modern military 
parks, were to be found about the summit. 

The views from this elevated height were superb, 
not only off across the sea to the mountainous land 
of Asia Minor, but inland toward the rocky interior 
of Rhodes herself. The land just across the little de- 
pression in which the white town lay, rose to an- 
other though less commanding height, in the slopes 
of which the excavator said they had but recently 
unearthed some ancient rock tombs. Beyond, the 
country rolled in an undulating sea of green hills — a 
pleasant land as always, and doubtless as flowery as 
of old when she took her name from the rose (rhodos) 
and when the wild pomegranate flower gave Brow^n- 
ing's " Balaustion " her nickname. As a colony of 
the Athenian empire she stood loyal to the Attic city 
down to 412 B. C, in those troublous days of the Pelo- 
ponnesian war, when the star of Athens waned and 
most of the Rhodians at last revolted. Those who still 
clung to Athens probably went away as Balaustion 
did, and returned, if at all, only after Athens had been 
laid waste to the sound of the flute. Under the Roman 
domination Rhodes enjoyed a return to high favor, 
and Tiberius selected the smiling isle as his place of 



RHODES 331 

banishment. For siding with Caesar, Cassius punished 
the island by plundering it. For centuries after, it was 
overrun by the Arabs ; and from them it was taken 
by the Byzantines, who turned it over to the Knights 
of St. John, who took the new name of the Knights 
of Rhodes, fortified the spot as we saw, and held it for 
a long time against all comers, down to 1522, when 
the Sultan Solyman II. reduced it. It is still Turkish 
territory, and of the finds made by the archaeolo- 
gists on the site of Lindos, the great bulk have been 
sent to Constantinople, including several hundred 
terra cotta figurines. The zealous Turks, the exca- 
vators complained, had taken away their books on 
landing, with the result that they had led a lonely life 
of it, their only diversion being their labors on the 
acropolis. 

We had no chance to inspect the interior of the 
island, which other visitors have described in glow- 
ing colors as most attractive in the profusion of its 
almost tropic verdure and its growths of cactus, ole- 
ander, myrtle, figs, and pomegranates. Like Cos, 
Rhodes was an ancient seat of culture, greatly favored 
by students, and the site of a celebrated university, 
^schines founded here a famous school of oratory, 
and in later years the institution was honored by the 
patronage of no less a personage than the Roman 
Cicero. Of these, of course, we saw no trace. 



332 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

Neither had we any opportunity to visit the ancient 
capital, "Rhodes the town," which boasts the ruins of 
a very similar castle of the knights. As for the famous 
Colossus, which nearly everybody remembers first of 
all in trying to recall what were the wonders of the 
world, it no longer exists. But in passing one may 
remark that the notion that this gigantic statue be- 
strode the harbor has been exploded, destroying one 
of the most cherished delusions of childhood which 
the picture in the back of Webster's Unabridged con- 
tributed not least of all in producing, in the past two 
generations. 

There were three celebrated cities in Rhodes in its 
golden age — Lindos, lalysos, and Kameiros — which, 
with Cos, Cnidos, and Halicarnassus, formed the an- 
cient Dorian "hexapolis," or six cities, four of which 
it had been our good fortune to visit within the past 
two days. The city of Rhodes was formed compara- 
tively late by inhabitants from the three original cities 
of the island, and became a prosperous and influen- 
tial port. The inhabitants were seafaring people and 
developed a high degree of skill in navigation, with 
an interesting corollary in their code of maritime law, 
from which a faint survival is found in the doctrine 
of " general average " in our own admiralty practice, 
sometimes referred to as the Rhodian law, and hav- 
ing to do with the participation of all shippers in such 



RHODES 333 

losses as may be occasioned by throwing a part of 
the cargo overboard to save the whole from loss. To 
visit Kameiros and the interior would have been inter- 
esting but impossible, and we found our consolation 
for the inability to visit other Rhodian sites in the 
loveliness of Lindos, with its acropolis above and its 
pure white walls below, its gardens, its courtyards, and 
its collections of plates. And we left it with regret — 
a regret which was shared no doubt by the lonely 
Danish explorer whom we left waving adieu to us 
from the shore as we pulled away across the shallow 
waters of the harbor to the steamer, and turned our 
faces once more toward the west and that Athens of 
which Balaustion dreamed. 



CHAPTER XVIII. THERA 




NO island that we visited in our ^gean cruise 
was more interesting than Thera proved to 
be, when we had steamed across the intervening 
ocean from Rhodes and into the immense basin that 
serves Thera — or modern Santorin — for a harbor. 
No more remarkable harbor could well be conceived. 
If Vesuvius could be imagined to sink into Naples 
bay until there were left protruding only about a 
thousand feet of the present altitude ; if the ocean 
should be admitted to the interior of the volcano 
by two great channels or fissures in the sides — one 
at the point where the ubiquitous Mr. Cook has — 
or did have — his funicular railway, and the other 
in the general locality represented by the ill-starred 
Bosco Trecase ; and if the present awesome crater, 
into which so many thousand visitors have peered, 
should thus be filled throughout its extent by the 
cooling waters, so as to form a great and placid bay 
within the mountain, — then we should have an al- 



THERA 335 

most exact reproduction of what happened at Thera 
something like four thousand years ago. Further- 
more, if we may add to our Vesuvian hypothesis the 
supposition that there be built along the eastern lip 
of the crater a long white town, stretching for per- 
haps a mile along the sharp spine of the summit, we 
should have an equally exact reproduction of what 
exists at Thera to-day. 

Thera lies at the end of the chain of submerged 
peaks that reveal the continuation of the Attic pen- 
insula under the waters of the ^gean. The same 
rocky range of mountains that disappears into the 
sea at Sunium rises again and again as it stretches 
off to the southeast to form the islands of Cythnos, 
Seriphos, Siphnos, and their fellows, and the series 
closes, apparently, in the volcanic island of Santorin, 
under which name the moderns know the island 
which the ancients called successively Kallista (most 
beautiful) and Thera. Considering her beauty as an 
island and her comparative nearness to the main- 
land of Greece or to Crete, Thera is surprisingly little 
known. Historically Thera had small celebrity com- 
pared with her neighbors ; but in every other way it 
seemed to us that she surpassed them all. Legend 
appears to have left the island comparatively unhon- 
ored, and poetry has permitted her to remain unsung. 
No Byron has filled high his bowl with Theran wine. 



336 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

No burning poetess lived or sang in her single tor- 
tuous street. No god of Olympus claimed the isle 
for his birthright. But for beauty of every kind, from 
the pastoral to the sublimely awful, Thera has no 




fellow in the ^gean ; and for extraordinary natural 
history and characteristics, it is doubtful if it has a 
fellow in the world. For it is a sunken volcano, with 
a bottomless harbor, where once was the centre of 
fiery activity, — a harbor, rimmed about with miles 
of encircling precipices, on the top of one of which 



THERA 337 

lies the town of Thera, a thousand feet straight up 
above the sea, and reachable only by a steep and 
winding mule track which connects it with the dimin- 
utive landing stage below. 

There appears to be a wide divergence of opinion 
as to the exact date when the original mountain was 
blown to pieces and sunk in the ocean, but it may be 
roughly stated to have occurred in the vicinity of the 
sixteenth century before Christ, although some au- 
thorities incline to believe the eruption to have come 
to pass at a still earlier period. As to the inhabitants 
before the time of that extraordinary upheaval, little 
is known save what may be gleaned from a multi- 
tude of pottery vases left behind by those early set- 
tlers, and bearing ornamentation of a rude sort that 
stamps them as belonging to the remote pre-Myce- 
naean age, the age that preceded the greatness of 
Agamemnon's city and the sack of Troy. It seems 
entirely probable that the early Therans were from 
Phoenicia, and tradition says that they came over 
under the leadership of no less a personage than 
Cadmus himself. What we know for a certainty, 
however, is that at some prehistoric time the original 
volcano underwent a most remarkable change and 
subsided, with a blaze of glory that can hardly be 
imagined, into the waters of the ^^gean, until only 
the upper rim and three central cones are now to be 



338 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

seen above the water's edge. Through two enormous 
crevices torn in the northern and southern slopes the 
irresistible ocean poured into the vast central cavity, 
cooling to a large extent the fiery ardor of the moun- 
tain and leaving it as we found it, a circle of frown- 
ing clifTs, nearly a thousand feet in height and some- 
thing like eighteen miles in periphery, inclosing a 
placid and practically bottomless harbor in what was 
once the volcano's heart, the surface of the bay pierced 
by only three diminutive islands, once the cones of 
the volcano, and not entirely inert even to-day. In 
fact one of these central islands appeared as recently 
as 1866 during an eruption that showed the fires of 
Santorin not yet to be extinguished by any means — 
a fact that is further testified to by the heat of certain 
portions of the inclosed waters of the basin. 

Into this curious harbor our little chartered ship 
glided in the early light of an April morning, which 
dimly revealed the walls of forbidding stone towering 
high above in cliffs of that black, scarred appearance 
peculiar to volcanic formation, marred by the ravages 
of the ancient fires, yet none the less relieved from 
utter sullenness here and there by strata of rich red 
stone or by patches of grayish white tufa. Neverthe- 
less it was all sombre and forbidding, especially in 
the early twilight ; for the sun had not yet risen above 
the horizon, much less penetrated into the cavernous 







i 









THERA 339 

depths of Thera's harbor. High above, however, 
perched on what looked like a most precarious po- 
sition along the summit of the cliff, ran the white line 
of the city, already catching the morning light on its 
domes and towers, but seeming rather a Lilliputian 
village than a habitation of men ; while far away to the 
north, on another portion of the crater wall, a smaller 
city seemed rather a lining of frost or snow gathered 
on the crater's lip. 

A few shallops made shift to anchor close to the foot 
of the precipice, where a narrow submarine shelf pro- 
jects sufficiently to give a precarious holding ground 
for small craft ; and near them were grouped a few 
white buildings showing duskily in the morning half- 
light and serving to indicate the landing stage. In 
the main, however, there is little anchorage in the 
entire bay, which is practically bottomless. No cable 
could fathom the depth of the basin a few rods off 
shore, and fortunately none is needed, since the shel- 
ter is perfect. The steamer held her own for hours 
by a mere occasional lazy turning of her screw. To 
the southward lay the broad channel through which 
our ship had entered, and to the north lay the nar- 
row passage through which at nightfall we proposed 
to depart for Athens. Everywhere else was the en- 
circling wall of strangely variegated rock, buttressed 
here and there by enormous crags of black lava, 



340 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

which sometimes seemed to strengthen it and some- 
times threatened to fall crashing to the waters directly 
below. Indeed landslides are by no means uncommon 
in Thera, and several persons have been killed even 
at the landing place by masses of stone falling from 
above. 

As the light increased at the base of the cliff, it 
became possible to see the donkey track leading in 
a score or more of steep windings up the face of the 
rock from the landing to the city high above, arched 
here and there over old landslips or ravines, while 
near by were to be seen curious cave-dwellings, where 
caverns in the tufa had been walled up, provided with 
doors and windows, and inhabited. 

There was some little delay in landing, even after 
our small boats had set us ashore on the narrow quay, 
slippery with seaweed and covered with barnacles. 
We were herded in a rather impatient group behind 
a row of shore boats drawn up on the landing stage, 
and detained there until " pratique " had been ob- 
tained, which entitled us to proceed through the de- 
vious byways of the tiny village close by to the be- 
ginning of the ascent. The wharf was covered with 
barrels, heaps of wood, carboys covered with wicker, 
and all the paraphernalia to be expected of the port 
of a wine-exporting, water-importing community ; for 
Thera has to send abroad for water, aside from what 



THERA 341 

she is able to collect from the rains, and also relies 
largely on her neighbors for wood. There are almost 
no native trees and no springs at all ; and one French 
writer apparently has been greatly disturbed by this 
embarrassing difficulty, saying, " One finds there 
neither wood nor water, so that it is necessary to go 
abroad for each — and yet to build ships one must 
have wood, and to go for water ships are necessary ! " 
On emerging from the cluster of small buildings at 
the base of the cliff and entering upon the steep path 
which leads to the city above, we at once encountered 
the trains of asses that furnish the only means of com- 
munication between the village of Thera above and 
the ships below — asses patiently bearing broad deck- 
loads of fagots, or of boards, or of various containers 
useful for transporting liquids. It was easily possible 
to hire beasts to ride up the winding high way to Thera, 
but as the grade was not prohibitive and as the time 
required for a pedestrian to ascend was predicted to be 
from twenty minutes to half an hour, these were voted 
unnecessary, especially as it was still shady on the bay 
side of the cliff and would continue so for hours. So 
we set out, not too briskly, up the path. It proved to 
be utterly impracticable for anything on wheels, be- 
ing not only steep but frequently provided with the 
broad steps so often to be seen in Greek and Italian 
hill towns, while it was paved throughout with blocks 



342 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of basalt which continual traffic had rendered slip- 
pery in the extreme. The slipperiness, indeed, ren- 
ders the ascent to Thera if anything easier than the 
coming down, for on the latter journey one must ex- 
ercise constant care in placing the feet and proceed 
at a pace that is anything but brisk, despite the 
downward grade. 

The only care in going up was to avoid the little 
trains of donkeys with their projecting loads and their 
mischievous desire to crowd pedestrians to the para- 
pet side of the road, a propensity which we speedily 
learned to avoid by giving the beasts as wide a berth 
as the constricted path would allow, choosing always 
the side next the cliff itself ; for the sheer drop from 
the parapet soon became too appalling to contemplate 
as the way wound higher and higher, turn after turn, 
above the hamlet at the landing. The view speedily 
gained in magnificence, showing the bay in its full 
extent, with the two entrance channels far away and 
the detached portion of the opposite crater wall, now 
called Therasia, as if it were, as it appears to be, an 
entirely separate island of a small local archipelago, 
instead of one homogeneous but sunken mountain. 
Directly below lay the landing stage with its cluster 
of white warehouses, the scattered cave-dwellings, and 
the tiny ships moored close to the quay — small enough 
at close range, but from this height like the vessels in 



THERA 



343 



a toy-shop So precipitous is the crater wall that one 
could almost fling a pebble over the parapet and strike 
the settlement at the foot of the path. The varying 
colors of the rock, when brought out by the growing 
sunlight, added a sombre liveliness to the view, the 
red tones of the cliff preponderating over the forbid- 
ding black of the lava, while here and there a long 
gash revealed the ravages of a considerable landslip. 

It was, indeed, a half-hour's hard climb to Thera. 
But when the town did begin, it stole upon us ere we 
were aware, isolated and venturesome dwellings of the 
semi-cave type dropping down the face of the cliff to 
meet the highway winding painfully up, these in turn 
giving place to more pretentious dwellings with flat 
or domed roofs, all shining with immaculate white- 
wash and gleaming in the morning sun, in sharp 
contrast with the dark rocks on which they had their 
foundation. The scriptural architect who built his 
house upon the sand might well have regarded that 
selection as stable and secure compared with some 
of these Theran dwellings ; for although they are 
founded upon a rock and are in some cases half sunk 
in it, there seems to be little guarantee that the rock 
itself may not some day split off and land them down 
among the ships. 

When the winding path finally attained the summit, 
it was found to debouch into a narrow public square, 



344 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

flanked by the inevitable museum of antiquities and a 
rather garish church ; the latter painfully new, and, like 
all Greek houses of worship, making small pretense 
of outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual 
grace. It may be sacred to St. Irene, and very likely 
is, for the island takes its modern name from that saint 
and boasts innumerable shrines to her memory. We 
take credit to ourselves that, although Thera called 
loudly with manifold charms, we first sought the sanc- 
tuary ; but to our shame we did not remain there long. 
A venerable priest, perspiring under a multitude of 
gorgeous vestments, was officiating in the presence of 
a very meagre congregation, composed of extremely 
young boys and a scant choir. Fortunately for our 
peace of mind, this particular church's one foundation 
was on the side of the square away from the precipice, 
giving a sense of security not otherwise to be gained. 
But the mountain, even on its gentler side, is far from 
being gradual, and is only less steep than toward the 
inner basin. The "blessed mutter of the mass" in 
Greek is so unintelligible to foreign ears that it soon 
drove us forth into the air outside and then to the little 
museum next door, where were displayed the rather 
overwhelming antiquities of the place, — mainly vases 
that had been made and used long before the eruption 
which destroyed the island's original form so many 
thousand years before. Many of these were graceful 



THERA 345 

in form, and some are in quite perfect preservation 
despite their fragility and the enormous lapse of time, 
revealing still the rude efforts of the early artist's brush 
in geometric patterns, lines, angles, and occasionally 
even primitive attempts to represent animal shapes. 
Doubtless these relics are no more ancient than those to 
be seen by the curious in the palace of Minos in Crete, 
and are paralleled in antiquity by pottery remnants in 
other pre-Mycenaean sites ; but for some reason the 
lapse of ages since they were made and used comes 
home to one with more reality in Thera than else- 
where, I suppose because of the impressive story of 
the eruption at such a hazy distance before the dawn 
of recorded history. So overpowering did these silent 
witnesses of a bygone day prove, that we disposed 
of them with a celerity that would have shocked an 
archaeologist, and betook ourselves straightway to the 
modern town without, which ran temptingly along 
the ridge of the summit northward, presenting, like 
Taormina, a single narrow street lined with the whit- 
est of shops and dwellings, with here and there nar- 
row byways of steps leading up or down, as the case 
might be, to outlying clusters of buildings. This main 
thoroughfare, hardly wider than a city sidewalk, fol- 
lows the uneven line of the mountain top, winding 
about and dodging up and down, sometimes by in- 
clined planes and sometimes by flights of steps, such 



346 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

as are common enough in side streets of Italian or 
Greek hill towns. 

From the higher points the city presented a sea of 
undulating white, the roofs divided almost evenly 
between the flat, parapeted style, designed to catch 
the falling rain, which is doubly precious in the island, 
and the dome, or half-barrel style, which bears wit- 
ness to the local scarcity of timber, making necessary 
this self-supporting arch of cement. Thus over and 
over again is the lack of wood and water brought to 
mind. At a turn in the main street there disclosed it- 
self a fascinating vista of white walls, inclosing neat 
courtyards, pebble-paved in black and white after the 
island manner, and framing in the distance a many- 
arched campanile in clear relief against the brilliant 
sky, the glare of the whiteness mitigated by the 
strong oblique shadows and the bronze green of the 
bells. 

Two things prevented our tarrying in Thera in- 
definitely. One was the urgent need of returning to 
our steamer and pursuing our cruise through the 
^gean ; the other was the lack of suitable lodging. 
However, it is likely that the latter would have proved 
anything but an insuperable obstacle if tested by an 
irresistible force of intrepid determination, for lodg- 
ing we could have found, despite the fact that Thera 
boasts no hotel. Wandering along the street and 




A THERAN STREET 



THERA 347 

stopping now and then to inspect the curious way- 
side shops, or to gaze in wonder through gaps in the 
walls of dwellings at the incredible gulf yawning be- 
yond and beneath, we came suddenly upon a coffee- 
house which completed our capture. The proprietor, 
as it developed, spoke Italian enough to give us 
common ground, ushered us out upon a balcony that 
looked toward the water, and produced a huge flagon 
of the wine of the country. Ah, the wine of the coun- 
try ! It was yellow. It was not sickish sweet, like the 
Samian that Byron praised so. It was warming to 
the midriff and made one charitable as one sipped. 
Overhead flapped a dingy awning in the lazy west- 
ern breeze. Below wound the donkey path, with its 
trains of asses silently ascending and descending 
through the shimmering heat of the April morning. 
Far, far beneath, and indeed almost directly at our 
feet, lay the toy-ships and the steamer, close by the 
little hamlet of the landing stage, where tiny people, 
like ants, scurried busily, but at this distance made no 
sound. Across the sea of rising and falling roofs came 
the tinkle of an insistent church bell, calling the con- 
gregation of some church of St. Irene. Bliss like this 
is cheap at three drachmas, with a trifling addition 
of Greek coppers for good-will ! It was on this narrow 
balcony overlooking the bay that we fell in love with 
Thera. Before we had been merely prepossessed. 



348 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

The Greek word for hotel sounds suspiciously like 
"Senator Sheehan" in the mouth of the native, as we 
had long ago learned ; so we instituted inquiry as to 
that feature of the town, in the hope some day of re- 
turning thither for a more extended stay, with oppor- 
tunity to explore the surrounding country. A distant 
and not unpromising edifice was pointed out, a coffee- 
house like our own, but provided with a large room 
where rather dubious beds were sometimes spread 
for the weary, according to our entertainer; and it 
may be that his shrug was the mere product of pro- 
fessional jealousy. Inexorable fate, however, decreed 
that we should not investigate, but content ourselves 
with rambling through the town from end to end, 
enjoying its quaint architecture, its white walls re- 
lieved only by touches of bufT or the lightest of light 
blues, its incomparable situation on this rocky saddle, 
and its views, either into the chasm of the harbor or 
outward across the troubled expanse of the JEgean 
to other neighboring islands. 

At the north end of the city, where the houses 
ceased and gave place to the open ridge of the 
mountain, there stood an old mill, into the cavern- 
ous depths of which we were bidden enter by an 
aged crone. It revealed some very primitive ma- 
chinery, the gearing being hewn out of huge slices 
of round logs in which rude cogs were cut. Just out- 



THERA 349 

side stood a sooty oven, for the miller not only ground 
the neighborhood corn, but converted it into bread. 
Beyond the mill there was nothing in the way of habi- 
tation, although on a distant bend of the crater there 
was visible a white patch of basalt that bore the ap- 
pearance of a populous city with towers and battle- 
ments. Still farther to the north, at the cape next the 
channel out to sea, lies an inconsiderable town, simi- 
larly situated on the ridge, while along the bay to the 
south are occasional settlements and windmills. But 
Thera town is the only congested centre of popula- 
tion. 

In attempting to analyze the impression that Thera 
made on us, we have come to the conclusion that its 
chief charm, aside from its curious position, is its color; 
and that the difficulty of describing it is due in large 
part to the inability to paint in words the amazing 
contrasts of rock, city, and sky, not to mention the sea. 
One may depict, although feebly, the architectural 
charm, with the aid of his camera, or, if duly gifted, 
may chant the praise of Theran wine. With the aid 
of geological statistics one may tell just how the moun- 
tain would appear if we could draw off the ocean and 
expose its lower depths, leaving a circle of mountain 
inclosing a three-thousand foot cup, and jagged cen- 
tral cones. One might, by a superhuman effort, do 
justice to the importunity of the begging children of 



350 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

the town. But to give a true account of Thera de- 
mands the aid of the artist with his pigments, while 
best of all is a personal visit, involving little time and 
trouble to one visiting Greece — little trouble,that is to 
say, in comparison with the charms that Thera has to 
show. And it is safe to say that every such visitor will 
pick his way gingerly down over the slippery paving 
stones to the landing below with a poignant sense of 
regret at leaving this beauty spot of the ^gean, and 
sail out of the northern passage with a sigh, look- 
ing back at the lights of Thera, on the rocky height 
above the bay, mingling their blinking points with 
the steady stars of the warm Mediterranean night. 



CHAPTER XIX. NIOS; PAROS; 
A MIDNIGHT MASS 



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WE spent Easter Sunday at Paros. It proved to 
be a mild and not especially remarkable day 
in the local church, which was old and quaint and 
possessed of many highly interesting features within 
and without, of which we must speak later on, for some 
of its portions date back to the pagan days. Its floor 
was littered with the aromatic leaves which had been 
dropped and trampled under foot the night before 
by the worshipers at the midnight mass ; for it ap- 
peared that the chief observance of the feast in the 
Greek church was on the night before Easter, rather 
than on the day itself. Indeed we ourselves had been 
so fortunate, on the previous evening, as to attend 
this quaint nocturnal ceremony at the neighboring 
island of los, or Nios, as it is variously called. 

Our little ship, as is the usual custom among the 
Greeks, had a shrine in the end of its saloon, with an 
icon, and a lamp was perpetually burning before it. 



352 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

The Greek takes his religion seriously, and makes it 
a part of his life afloat and ashore, it would seem. On 
Good Friday, for example, our national flag was low- 
ered to half-mast and kept there in token of mourn- 
ing for the crucified Lord, until the church proclaimed 
His rising from the dead, when it once again mounted 
joyously to the peak. The men seemed religiously 
inclined, and it was in deference to a request of the 
united crew, preferred while we lay in the harbor of 
Santorin, that it was decided to run north from that 
island to Nios, which was not far away and which 
possessed one of the best harbors in the ^gean, in 
order that the native sailors and the captain might 
observe the churchly festival according to custom — a 
request that was the more readily granted because we 
were all rather anxious to see the Easter-eve ceremony 
at its climax. Those who had witnessed it in previous 
years vouched for it as highly interesting, and such 
proved to be the fact ; for between the ceremony 
itself and the excitement of reaching the scene, this 
evening furnished one of the most enjoyable of all our 
island experiences. 

In reply to questions touching upon the remoteness 
of the church at Nios from the landing, the second 
officer, who spoke Italian, had assured us with a high 
disregard of the truth that it was " vicino ! vicino ! " 
It was pitch dark before we neared Nios, however, 



A MIDNIGHT MASS 353 

and as the moon was due to be late in rising that night 
we got no warning glimpse of the land, but were made 
aware of its approach only by a shapeless bulk in the 
dark which suddenly appeared on either hand, the 
entrance to the harbor being vaguely indicated by a 
single light, past which we felt our way at little more 
than a drifting pace until we were dimly conscious of 
hills all about, half-guessed rather than visible in the 
gloom. Then, faint and far away, we began to hear 
the clamor of the village bells, rung with that insistent 
clatter so familiar to those acquainted with southern 
European churches. That their notes sounded so dis- 
tant gave us some idea at the outset that the mate's 
" vicino " might prove to be a rather misleading pro- 
mise, but very little was to be told by the sound, save 
that the churches from which the bells were pealing 
lay oflE somewhere to the right and apparently up a 
hill. Light there was none, not even a glimmer ; and 
our three dories put off for the shore over an inky sea 
inbecoming and decorous silence, toward the point 
where a gloom even more dense than the sky showed 
that there was land. The effect of it all was curious and 
had not a little of solemnity in it, as we groped our way 
to shore with careful oars and then felt about in the 
dark for the landing. The forward boat soon announced 
that some stone steps leading upward from the water 
had been found, and the rowers immediately raised 



354 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

a shout for lights, as one by one we were handed up 
the slimy stairs to the top of a broad stone quay, on 
which some white buildings could be dimly seen. A 
lantern did materialize mysteriously from some nook 
among the ghostly houses, and came bobbing down 
to the water's edge, serving little purpose, however, 
save to make the rest of the darkness more obscure. 
By its diminished ray the party were assembled in a 
compact body, and received admonition to keep to- 
gether and to follow as closely as possible the leader, 
who bore the light. 

These instructions, while simple enough to give, 
proved decidedly difficult to follow. The moon was 
far below the horizon, and the stars, while numerous 
and brilliant, gave little aid to strangers in a strange 
land, who could see no more than that they were on 
a deserted pier flanked by dim warehouses, and a 
long distance from the bells which were calling the 
devout to midnight prayer. The lantern set off along 
the flagstones of the deserted hamlet ; and after it in 
single file clattered the rest of us, keeping up as best 
we could. We emerged in short order from the little 
group of huts by the wharf and came out into a vast 
and silent country, where all was darker than before, 
save where the leading lantern pursued its fantastic 
way upward over what turned out to be a roughly 
paved mule track leading into a hill. Like most mule 



A MIDNIGHT MASS 355 

tracks, it mounted by steps, rather than by indines, 
and the progress of the long file of our party was slow 
and painful, necessitating frequent halts on the part 
of the guide with the lantern, while a warning word 
was constantly being passed back along the stumbling 
line of pedestrians as each in turn stubbed his toes 
over an unlooked-for rise in the grade. There was 
little danger of wandering off the path, for it was bor- 
dered by high banks. The one trouble was to keep 
one's feet and not to stumble as we climbed in the 
dark, able scarcely to see one another and much less 
to see anything of the path. The bells ceased to ring 
as we proceeded, and even that dim clue to the dis- 
tance of the town was lost. Decidedly it was weird, 
this stumbling walk up an unknown and unfrequented 
island path in the dead of night ; for it was long past 
eleven of the clock, and the Easter mass, as we knew, 
should reach its most interesting point at about twelve. 
Knowing this we made such haste as we could and 
the little town of Nios stole upon us ere we were 
aware, its silent buildings of gray closing in upon the 
road and surrounding us without our realizing their 
presence, until a sudden turning of the way caused 
the lantern far ahead to disappear entirely from our 
view in the mazes of the town. 

It was as deserted as the little wharf had been. 
Moreover it was as crooked as it was dark. Here and 



356 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

there an open doorway gave out across the way a 
single bar of yellow light, but most of the habitations 
were as silent as the tomb, their owners and occu- 
pants being in church long before. On and on through 
a seeming labyrinth of little streets we wound, the 
long thread of the party serving as the sole clue to 
the way, as did Ariadne's cord ; for the lantern was 
never visible to the rear guard now, owing to the 
turns and twists of the highway. Twice we met be- 
lated church-goers coming down from side paths with 
their tiny lanterns, and the utter astonishment on 
their faces at beholding this unexpected inundation 
of foreigners at that unearthly hour of night was as 
amusing as it was natural. Once the thread of the 
party was broken at a corner, and for an anxious 
moment there was a council of war as to which street 
to take. It was a lucky guess, however, for a sudden 
turn brought the laggards out of the obscurity and 
into a lighted square before the doors of the church 
itself — a tiny church, white walled and low roofed, 
and filled apparently to its doors, while from its open 
portals trickled the monotonous chant of a male choir, 
the voices always returning to a well-marked and not 
unmelodious refrain. 

In some mysterious way, room was made for us in 
the stifling church, crowded as it was with men and 
women. Candles furnished the only light. On the 



A MIDNIGHT MASS 357 

right a choir of men and boys, led by the local school- 
master, chanted their unending, haunting minor lit- 
any. An old and bespectacled priest peered down 
over the congregation from the door of the iconosta- 
sis. Worshipers came and went. The men seemed 
especially devout, taking up the icon before the en- 
trance and kissing it passionately and repeatedly. 
On each of us as we entered was pressed a slender 
taper of yellow wax, perhaps a foot in length, and we 
stood crowded in the little auditorium holding these 
before us expectantly, and regarded with lively and 
good-humored curiosity by the good people within. 
Presently the priest came forward from the door of 
the altar-screen with his candle alight, which was the 
signal for an excited scramble by a dozen small boys 
nearest him to get their tapers lighted first — after 
which the fire ran from candle to candle until every- 
body bore his tiny torch ; and following the old priest, 
we all trooped out into the square before the church, 
where the service continued. 

That was a sight not easily to be forgotten — the 
tiny square, in the centre of which stood the cata- 
falque of Christ, while all around stood the throng of 
worshipers, each bearing his flaring taper, the whole 
place flooded with a yellow glow. The monotone of 
the service continued as before. The gentle night 
breeze sufficed now and then to put out an unshel- 



358 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

tered candle here and there, but as often as this 
occurred the bystanders gave of their fire, and the 
illumination was renewed as often as interrupted. 

The quaint service culminated with the proclama- 
tion of the priest that Christ had risen, — " Christos 
aneste," — at which magic words all restraint was 
thrown off and the worshipers abandoned them- 
selves to transports of holy joy. A stalwart man seized 
the bell-rope that dangled outside the church and rang 
a lively toccata on the multiple bells above, while ex- 
uberant boys let fly explosive torpedoes at the walls 
of neighboring houses, making a merry din after the 
true Mediterranean fashion ; for the religious festi- 
vals of all southern countries appear to be held fit 
occasions for demonstrations akin unto those with 
which we are wont to observe our own national birth- 
day. We were soon aware that other churches of the 
vicinity had reached the " Christos aneste " at about 
the same hour, for distant bells and other firecrackers 
and torpedoes speedily announced the rising of the 
Lord. 

Doubtless a part of the Easter abandon is due to 
the reaction from the rigorous keeping of Lent among 
the Greeks, as well as to a devout sentiment that re- 
news itself annually at this festival with a fervor that 
might well betoken the first novel discovery of eter- 
nal salvation as a divine truth. The Greek Lent is an 



A MIDNIGHT MASS 359 

austere season, in which the abstinence from food and 
wine is astonishingly thorough. Indeed, it has been 
reported by various travelers in Hellas in years past 
that they were seriously inconvenienced by the in- 
ability they met, especially in Holy Week, to procure 
sufficient food ; for the peasantry were unanimously 
fasting, and unexpected wayfarers in the interior could 
find but little cheer. The native manages to exist on 
surprisingly little sustenance during the forty days. 
On the arrival of Easter it is not strange that he casts 
restraint to the winds and manifests a delight that is 
obviously unbounded. However, it need not be in- 
ferred from this that undue license prevails, for this 
apparently was not the case — not in Nios, at any 
rate. The service, after the interruption afforded by 
bells and cannonading, resumed its course, and was 
said to endure until three o'clock in the morning ; a 
fact which might seem to indicate that the Easter 
pleasuring was capable of a decent restraint and post- 
ponement, although the Lord had officially risen and 
death was swallowed up in victory. 

Our own devotion was not equal to the task of 
staying through this long mass, as it was already well 
past the midnight hour, and we had made a long and 
strenuous day of it. So, with repeated exchanges of 
" Christos aneste " between ourselves and the vil- 
lagers, we set out again through the narrow byways 



36o GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

of the town, and down over the rough mule path to 
the ship, each of us bearing his flaring taper and 
shielding it as well as possible from the night wind; 
for the sailors were bent on getting some of that 
sacred flame aboard alive, and in consequence saw to 
it that extinguished candles were promptly relighted 
lest we lose altogether the precious fire. We made a 
long and ghostly procession of winking lights as we 
streamed down over the hillside and out to the boats 
— a fitting culmination to one of the most curious 
experiences which the ^gean vouchsafed us. 

We found the " red eggs " peculiar to the Greek 
Easter awaiting us when we came aboard — eggs, 
hard-boiled and colored with beet juice or some simi- 
lar coloring matter, bowls of which were destined to 
become a familiar sight during the week or two that 
followed the Easter season. The Greeks maintain that 
this is a commemoration of a miracle which was once 
performed to convince a skeptical woman of the real- 
ity of the resurrection. She was walking home, it 
seems, with an apron full of eggs which she had 
bought, when she met a friend whose countenance 
expressed unusual rejoicing, and who ran to meet 
her, crying, " Have you heard the news ? " " Surely 
not," was the reply. "What is this news?" "Why, 
Christ the Lord is risen ! " " Indeed," responded the 
skeptic, " that I cannot believe ; nor shall I believe it 



A MIDNIGHT MASS 361 

unless the eggs that I carry in my apron shall have 
turned red." And red they proved to be when she 
looked at them ! 

Owing to the exhaustion due to the festivities of 
the night before, we found Easter Sunday at Paros a 
quiet day indeed. The streets of the little town proved 
to be practically deserted, for it was a day of home- 
keeping, and no doubt one of feasting. The occa- 
sional vicious snap of a firecracker was to be heard 
as we landed on the mole that serves the chief town 
of Paros for a wharf and started for a short Sunday 
morning ramble through the streets. From the land- 
ing stage the most conspicuous object in Paros was 
a large white church not far from the water, rejoicing 
in the name of the ** Virgin of a Hundred Gates," as 
we were told w^e should interpret the epithet " heka- 
tonpyliani." It proved to be a sort of triple church, 
possessing side chapels on the right and left of the 
main auditorium, and almost as large. In that at the 
right was to be seen a cruciform baptismal font, very 
venerable and only a little raised from the level of 
the floor, indicating the uses to which this apartment 
of the church was put. The presence of ancient mar- 
ble columns incorporated into this early Christian 
edifice was likewise striking. In the main church the 
most noticeable thing was the employment of a stone 
altar-screen, or iconcstasis, wath three doors leading 



362 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

into the apse behind instead of the customary single 
one, an arrangement which has often been com- 
mented upon as resembHng the proskenion of the 
ancient theatre. It was all deserted, and the air was 
heavy with old incense and with the balsamic per- 
fume of the leaves and branches that had fallen to 
the floor and been trampled upon during the mass of 
the previous night. It was all very still, very damp 
and cool, and evidently very old, doubtless supplant- 
ing some previous pagan shrine. 

In the court before the church stood a sort of aban- 
doned monastery, as at the pass of Daphne, only this 
one was spotless white, and with its walls served to 
shut in completely the area in front of the church 
itself. In a portion of the buildings of this inclosure 
is a small museum, chiefly notable for inscriptions, 
one of which refers to Archilochus, the writer of Iam- 
bic verse, who lived in Paros in the seventh century 
before the birth of Christ. 

The chief fame of Paros was, of course, for its mar- 
bles. The quarries whence these superb blocks came 
lay off to the northeast, we were aware ; and had time 
only allowed, they might have been explored with 
profit. The Parian marble was the favorite one for 
statues, owing to its incomparable purity and trans- 
lucence, and the facility with which it could be worked 
up to a high finish. It was quarried under ground, 




OLD COLUMNS IN CHURCH. PAROS 



A MIDNIGHT MASS 363 

and thus derived its designation, "lychnites," or 
" quarried-by-candlelight." Those who have visited 
the subterranean chambers formed by the men who 
anciently took marble from the spot relate that the ex- 
ploration of the quarries is fraught with considerable 
interest and with not a little danger, owing to the 
complex nature of the galleries and the varying levels. 
In wandering around the little modern town which 
occupies the site of the ancient city of Paros, and bears 
the name of Paroikia, we found not a little color to 
delight the eye, although the streets were generally 
rather muddy and squalid. On the southerly side of 
the harbor, where the basic rock of the island rises 
to a considerable height, there was anciently a small 
acropolis, which is still crowned with a rather mas- 
sive tower built by the Franks out of bits of ancient 
marble structures. From the outside, the curious log- 
cabin effect caused by using marble columns for the 
walls, each drum laid with ends outward, was most 
apparent and striking. Within we found a tiny shrine, 
deserted as the great church had been, but still giv- 
ing evidence of recent religious activity. Aside from 
the remnants of old temples, serving as the marble 
logs of this Frankish stronghold, there seemed to be 
little in Paros to recall the days when she was one of 
the richest of all the Athenian tributaries. A few pre- 
historic houses have been uncovered and several an- 



364 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

cient tombs. But the most lasting of all the classic 
monuments are the quarries, now deserted, but still 
revealing the marks of the ancient chisels, whence 
came the raw material for most of the famous Greek 
sculptures preserved to us. 

To us, seated on the pebbly beach and idly listen- 
ing to the lapping of the ^Egean waves, as we sunned 
ourselves and awaited the time for embarking, there 
appeared a native, gorgeous in clothes of a suspi- 
ciously American cut. He drew near, smiling frankly, 
and with a comprehensive gesture which explicitly 
included the ladies in his query, said : " Where do 
you fellers come from?" He had served in the Amer- 
ican navy, it appeared, and had voyaged as far as 
the Philippines. Other Parians ranged themselves at 
a respectful distance and gazed in open-mouthed 
admiration at their fellow townsman who understood 
how to talk with the foreigners, and who walked along 
with a lady on either side, whom he constantly ad- 
dressed as " you fellers " to their unbounded amuse- 
ment and delight. We convoyed him to a wayside 
inn near the quay, under two spindling plane trees, 
and plied him with cofiee as a reward for his courtesy 
and interest ; and later we left him standing with bared 
head watching our little ship steam away westward, 
toward the setting sun and that land to which he 
hoped one day to follow us once more. 



A MIDNIGHT MASS 365 

Our return to Athens from our island cruise was 
by way of the southeastern shore of the Pelopon- 
nesus, touching at Monemvasia, a rocky promontory 
near the most southern cape, and connected with the 
mainland by a very narrow isthmus, which it has 
even been necessary to bridge at one point ; so that, 
strictly speaking, Monemvasia is an island, rather 
than a promontory or peninsula. It is a most strik- 
ing rock, resembling Gibraltar in shape, though 
vastly smaller. In fact, like Gibraltar, it has the his- 
tory of an important strategic point, though it is such 
no longer. Its summit is still crowned by a system 
of defenses built by the Franks, and the inclosure, 
which includes the entire top of the rock, also con- 
tains a ruined church. A narrow and not unpictur- 
esque town straggles along the shore directly beneath 
the towering rock itself, much as the town of Gibral- 
tar does, and in it may be seen other ruined churches, 
belonging to the Prankish period largely, and unused 
now. The entrance to this village is through a for- 
midable stone gateway in the wall, which descends 
from the sheer side of the cliff above. A steep zig- 
zag path leads up from the town to the fort, which 
although deserted is kept locked, so that a key must 
be procured before ascending. 

Those who have seen the Norman defenses at the 
promontory of Cefalu, on the northern coast of Sicily, 



366 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

will recognize at once a striking similarity between 
that place and this Grecian one, not only from a to- 
pographical standpoint, but from the arrangement of 
the walls at the top and lower down at the gateway 
that bars the upward path. Cefalii, however, is in a 
more ruinous condition than this Prankish fortress 
to-day. In point of general situation and view from 
the summit the two are certainly very similar, with 
their broad outlook over sea and mainland. The 
sheer sides of the promontory made it a practically 
inaccessible citadel from nearly every direction, save 
that restricted portion up which the path ascends, 
and the defense of it against every foe but starvation 
was an easy matter. Even besiegers found it no easy 
thing to starve out the garrison, for it is on record 
that the stout old Crusader Villehardouin sat down 
before the gates of Monemvasia for three years before 
the inhabitants were forced to capitulate. 

The name of Monemvasia is derived from the fact 
that the isolated rock crowned with the fortress is 
connected with the mainland by a single narrow neck 
affording the only entrance. Hence the Greek f^ovrj 
c/AjSacris (mone emvasis) was combined in the modern 
pronunciation to form the not unmusical name of the 
place and has a perfectly natural explanation. More- 
over the same name, further shortened, lives again in 
the name of "Malmsey" wine, which is made from 



A MIDNIGHT MASS 367 

grapes grown on rocky vineyards and allowed to 
wither before gathering, as was the custom in the old 
Monemvasia wine industry. 

Of course the village at the base of the cliff is wholly 
unimportant now. Malmsey wine is no longer the chief 
product of this one solitary spot, but comes from San- 
torin, Portugal, Madeira, and a dozen other places, 
while Monemvasia and the derivation of the word are 
largely forgotten. The town has sunk into a state of 
poverty, and as for the fort, it is capable neither by 
artifice nor by natural surroundings of defending any- 
thing of value, and hence is of no strategic impor- 
tance. It has had its day and probably will never have 
another. It is, however, ruggedly beautiful, and the 
town, if degraded and half ruined, is still highly 
picturesque, though unfortunately seldom visited by 
Greek pilgrimages. It formed a fitting close for our 
island cruise, and indeed it is, as we discovered, really 
an island itself, the ribbon of isthmus connecting it 
with the Peloponnesus having been severed years ago, 
when Monemvasia was worthy to be counted a strong- 
hold. The gap in the land is now spanned by a per- 
manent bridge, so that practically Monemvasia is a 
promontory still, lofty and rugged, but not ungrace- 
ful ; and its imposing bulk loomed large astern as we 
steamed back along the coast toward the Piraeus and 
home. 



CHAPTER XX. CORFU 



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THE city of Patras, from which port we are about 
to take leave of Greece, is probably the most 
incongruous city in the kingdom. To be sure it is 
second in importance to Piraeus, and the latter city is 
quite as frankly commercial. But the proximity of the 
Piraeus to Athens and the presence of the Acropolis, 
crowned with its ruined temples always in the field of 
view, conspire to take a little of the modern gloss off 
the major port, and thus prevent it from displaying 
an entire lack of harmony with those classic attri- 
butes which are the chief charm of Hellas. Patras 
has no such environment. It has no such history. It 
is a busy seaport town, a railroad centre, and it is 
about everything that the rest of Greece is not. It 
even has a trolley line, which no other Greek city 
at this writing has, although of course the years 
will bring that convenience to Athens, as they have 
already brought the third-rail inter-urban road to_the 
sea. 



CORFU 369 

Patras appears to have been as uninteresting in 
antiquity as it is to-day, though doubtless from its ad- 
vantageous position on the Gulf of Corinth it was al- 
ways a more or less prosperous place. A very dubious 
tradition says that the Apostle Andrew was crucified 
here ; and whether he was or not, St. Andrew has re- 
mained the patron saint of the town. In any event, 
Patras shares with Corinth the celebrity of being one 
of the earliest seats of Christianity in Greece, although 
it is a celebrity which Corinth so far overshadows that 
poor Patras is generally forgotten. It probably figures 
to most Hellenic travelers, as it has in our own case, 
as either an entrance or an exit, and nothing more. 
Still, after one has spent a fortnight or more in the 
wilds of the Peloponnesian mountains, an evening 
stroll through the brilliantly lighted streets of the 
city comes not amiss, and gives one the sense of civ- 
ilization once more after a prolonged experience of 
the pastoral and archaic. 

It was stated early in this book that probably the 
ideal departure from Greece is by way of the Piraeus, 
as by that route one leaves with the benediction of 
the Acropolis, which must be reckoned the crowning 
glory of it all. But since we have elected to enter by 
the eastern gate in voyaging through these pages, it 
is our lot to depart by the western, and to journey 
back to Italy by way of Corfu, the island of Nausicaa. 



370 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

It is not to be regretted, after all. One might look far 
for a lovelier view than that to be had from the harbor 
of Patras. The narrow strait that leads into the Corin- 
thian Gulf affords a splendid panorama of mountain 
and hill on the farther side, as the northern coast 
sweeps away toward the east ; while outside, toward 
the setting sun, one may see the huge blue shapes of 
" shady Zakynthos," and "low-lying" Ithaca — which 
it has always struck me is not low-lying at all, but 
decidedly hilly. Through the straits and past these 
islands the steamers thread their way, turning north- 
ward into the Adriatic and heading for Corfu — 
generally, alas, by night. 

The redeeming feature of this arrangement is that, 
while it robs one of a most imposing view of receding 
Greece, it gives a compensatingly beautiful approach 
to Corfu on the following morning ; and there is not 
a more charming island in the world. It lies close to 
the Albanian shore, and with reference to the voyage 
between Patras and Brindisi it is almost exactly half 
way. In Greek it still bears the name of Kerkyra, a 
survival of the ancient Corcyra, the name by which 
it was known in the days when Athens and Corinth 
fought over it. The ancients affected to believe it the 
island mentioned in the Odyssey as " Scheria," the 
Phaeacian land ruled over by King Alcinoos ; and 
there is no very good reason why we also should not 



CORFU 371 

accept this story and call it the very land where the 
wily Odysseus was cast ashore, the more especially 
since his ship, converted into stone by the angry Posei- 
don, is still to be seen in the mouth of a tiny bay not 
far from the city ! We may easily drive down to it 
and, if we choose, pick out the spot on shore where 
the hero was wakened from his dreams by the shouts 
of Nausicaa and the maids as they played at ball on 
the beach while the washing was drying. 

In the ancient days, when navigation was conducted 
in primitive fashion without the aid of the mariner's 
compass, and when the only security lay in creeping 
from island to island and hugging the shore, Corcyra 
became a most important strategic point. In their 
conquest of the west, the Greeks were wont to sail 
northward as far as this island, skirting the main- 
land of Greece, and thence to strike off westward to 
the heel of Italy, where the land again afforded them 
guidance and supplies until they reached the straits 
of Messina. So that the route of Odysseus homeward 
from the haunts of Scylla and Charybdis and the isle 
Ortygia was by no means an unusual or roundabout 
one. This course of western navigation gave rise 
to continual bickering among the great powers of 
old as to the control of Corcyra, and Thucydides 
makes the contention over the island the real starting- 
point of the difficulties that culminated in the Pelo- 



372 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

ponnesian war and in the overthrow of the Athenian 
empire. 

Modern Corfu has a very good outer harbor, suit- 
able for large craft, although landing, as usual, is 
possible only by means of small boats. The declara- 
tion in Baedeker that the boatmen are insolent and 
rapacious appears no longer to be true. The matter 
of ferriage to shore seems to have been made the 
subject of wise regulation, and the charge for the 
short row is no longer extortionate. From the water 
the city presents a decidedly formidable appearance, 
being protected by some massive fortifications which 
were doubtless regarded as impregnable in their day, 
but which are unimportant now. They are of Vene- 
tian build, as are so many of the fortresses in Greek 
waters. Aside from the frowning ramparts of these 
ancient defenses, the town is a peaceful looking place 
in the extreme, with its tall white and gray houses, 
green-shuttered and trim. It is a town by no means 
devoid of picturesqueness, although it will take but 
a few moments' inspection to convince the visitor that 
Corfu is by nature Italian rather than Greek, despite 
its incorporation in the domains of King George. 
Corfu has always been in closer touch with western 
Europe than with the East, and it is doubtless because 
she has enjoyed so intimate a connection with Italy 
that her external aspects are anything but Hellenic. 



CORFU 373 

Moreover the English were for some years the suze- 
rains of the island, and have left their mark on it, for 
the island's good, although it is many years since the 
British government honorably surrendered the land 
to Greece, in deference to the wish of the inhabit- 
ants. 

Despite the Venetian character of the fortresses, they 
remind one continually of Gibraltar, although of course 
infinitely less extensive. Particularly is this true of the 
" fortezza nuova," which it is well worth while to ex- 
plore because of the fine view over the city and harbor 
to be had from its highest point. A custodian resides 
in a tiny cabin on the height and offers a perfectly 
needless telescope in the hope of fees, although it is 
doubtful that many ever care to supplement the eye 
by recourse to the glass. The prospect certainly is in- 
comparably beautiful. Below lies the city with its nar- 
row streets and lofty buildings, and before it the bay 
decked with white ships, contrasting with the almost 
incredible blue of the water, for the ocean is nowhere 
bluer than at Corfu. Across the straits not many miles 
away rises the bluff and mountainous mainland of Al- 
bania and Epirus, stretching off north and south into 
illimitable distances. Behind the town the country rolls 
away into most fertile swales and meadows, bounded 
on the far north by a high and apparently barren 
mountain. All the narrow southern end of the island is 



374 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

a veritable garden, well watered, well wooded, covered 
with grass and flowers, and rising here and there into 
low, tree-clad hills. Trim villas dot the landscape, and 
on a distant hill may be seen from afar the gleam- 
ing walls of the palace which belonged to the ill-fated 
Empress of Austria. 

From the fortress southward toward the bay where 
lies the " ship of Ulysses," there runs a beautiful es- 
planade along the water front, lined with trees and 
flanked on the landward side by villas with most luxu- 
riant gardens. Even though the British occupation 
came to an end as long ago as 1865, the roadways of 
the island bear the marks of the British thoroughness, 
and make riding in Corfu a pleasure. The houses 
along the way are largely of the summer-residence 
variety, the property of wealthy foreigners rather 
than of native Corfiotes ; and their gardens, especially 
in the springtime, are a riot of roses, tumbling over 
the high walls, or clambering all over the houses 
themselves, and making the air heavy with their fra- 
grance. The trees are no less beautiful, and the roads 
are well shaded by them. After a month or so of the 
comparatively treeless and often barren mainland of 
Greece, this exuberant Eden is a source of keen en- 
joyment with its wanton profligacy of bloom. 

It cannot be more than two miles, and perhaps it 
is rather less, over a smooth road and through a con- 




"SHIP OF ULYSSES." CORFU 



CORFU 375 

tinuous succession of gardens, from the town of Corfu 
out to the Httle knoll which overlooks the bay and 
"ship of Ulysses," and the view down on that most 
picturesque islet and across the placid waters of the 
narrow arm of the sea in which it lies, furnishes one 
of the most beautiful prospects in the island. The 
" ship " itself is a rather diminutive rock not far from 
shore, almost completely enshrouded in sombre, slen- 
der cypresses, which give it its supposed similarity to 
the Phaeacian bark of the wily Ithacan. Nor is it a 
similarity that is entirely imaginary. Seen from a dis- 
tance, the pointed trees grouped in a dark mass on 
this tiny isle do give the general effect of a vessel. 
Those who know the picture called the " Island of 
Death " will be struck at once with the similarity be- 
tween the " ship" and the painter's ideal of the abode 
of shades ; and with the best of reasons, for it is said 
that this island was the model employed. Amidst 
the dusk of the crowded trees one may distinguish a 
monastery, tenanted we were told by a single monk, 
while on a neighboring island, closer to the shore 
and connected therewith by a sort of rocky causeway, 
there is another monastery occupied by some band 
of religious brothers. This island also is not without 
its charms, but the eye always returns to that mourn- 
ful abandoned " ship," which surpasses in its weird 
fascination any other thing that Corfu has to show. 



376 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

The Villa Achilleion, which lies off to the south- 
ward on a lofty hill, shares with the ship of Ulysses 
the attention of the average visitor, and worthily so, 
not only because of the great beauty of the villa itself, 
with its mural paintings of classic subjects and its 
wonderful gardens, but because of the exquisite view 
that is to be had over the island from the spot. The 
lively verdure, the vivid blueness of the sea, and the 
gloomy rocks of the Turkish shore, all combine to 
form a picture not soon to be forgotten. As for the 
Achilleion itself, it was built for the Empress of Aus- 
tria, who was assassinated some years ago, and the 
estate has now, I believe, passed into private hands. 
The road to it is excellent, and occasional bits of the 
scenery along the way are highly picturesque, with 
now and then an isolated and many-arched campa- 
nile, adorned with its multiple bells in the Greek man- 
ner, obtruding itself unexpectedly from the trees. 

There are unquestionably many rides around the 
island that are quite as enjoyable as this, but the ordi- 
nary visitor is doubtless the one who stops over for 
a few hours only, during the stay of his steamer in 
the port, and therefore has little time for more than 
the sights described. Those who are able to make the 
island more than a brief way-station on the way to 
or from Greece express themselves as enchanted with 
it, and the number of attractive villas built by for- 



CORFU 377 

eigners of means would seem to emphasize the state- 
ment. Corfu as an island is altogether lovely. 

The city itself has already been referred to as more 
Italian than Greek in appearance. Nevertheless it is 
really Greek, and its shops are certainly more like those 
of Athens than like those of Italy, while the ordinary 
signboards of the street are in the Greek characters. 
It is the height of the houses, the narrowness of the 
streets, the occasional archways, and the fact that al- 
most everybody can speak Italian, that give the un- 
mistakable Italian touch to Corfu after one has seen 
the broader highways and lower structures of Athens. 
But Greco-Italian as it is, one cannot get away from 
the fact that, after all, it reminds one quite as much of 
Gibraltar as of anything. The town does this, quite as 
much as the fortresses, with its narrow ways and its 
evident cosmopolitanism. The shops, although devoted 
largely to Greek merchandise, are a good deal like 
the Gibraltar bazaars, and make quite as irresistible an 
appeal to the pocket, with their gorgeous embroidered 
jackets, blue and gold vestments, and other barbaric 
but incredibly magnificent fripperies, fresh from the 
tailor's hand, and not, as at Athens, generally the 
wares of second-hand dealers. To see peasant jackets 
and vests of red and blue, and heavily ornamented 
with gold tracery, go to Corfu. Nothing at Athens 
approaches the Corfiote display. 



378 GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

There are some archaeological remains at Corfu, 
but not of commanding prominence ; and the average 
visitor, busied with the contemplation of the loveliness 
of the country and the quaintness of the town for a few 
brief hours, probably omits to hunt them up, as we 
ourselves did. The most obvious monuments of the past 
are those of the medieval period, the Venetian strong- 
holds that served to protect Corfu when the island was 
an important bulwark against the Saracens. Of the 
days when the rival powers of classic Greece warred 
over the Corcyreans and their fertile island, little trace 
has survived. There is a very old tomb in the south- 
erly suburb of Kastrades and the foundation of an 
ancient temple, but neither is to be compared for in- 
terest with the host of monuments of equal antiquity 
to be seen in Greece and even in Sicily. Corfu, like 
Italy, has suffered a loss of the evidences of her anti- 
quity by being so constantly on the great highway to 
western Europe. She has never been left to one side, 
as Greece so long was. Her fertility prevented her de- 
generating into mere barren pasturage, as happened 
in Hellas proper, and her situation made her impor- 
tant all through the Middle Ages, just as it made her 
important during the expansion period of the Athenian 
empire. And as Rome, through active and continuous 
existence, has gradually eaten up her own ancient 
monuments before they achieved the value of great 



CORFU 379 

age, so Corfu has lost almost entirely all trace of what 
the ancient Corcyreans built ; while Athens, through 
her long ages of unimportance, preserved much of her 
classic monumental glories unimpaired, and thanks to 
an awakened appreciation of them will cherish them 
for all time. 

The long years in which Greece lay fallow and de- 
serted now appear not to have been in vain. Through 
that period of neglect her ancient sites and monu- 
ments lay buried and forgotten, but intact. Men were 
too busy exploring and expanding elsewhere to waste 
a thought on the dead past. Even the revival of learn- 
ing, which exhumed the classic writings from the ob- 
livion of monkish cells and made the literature of 
Greece live again, was insufficient to give back to the 
world the actual physical monuments of that classic 
time. It has remained for the present day, when the 
earth has been all but completely overrun and when 
men have found a dearth of new worlds to conquer, 
that we have had the time and the interest to turn back 
to Greece, sweep away the rubbish of ages, and give 
back to the light of day the palaces of Agamemnon, 
the strongholds of Tiryns, and the hoary old labyrinth 
of Minos. On the fringes of Magna Graecia, where the 
empire was in touch with the unceasing tides of western 
civilization, as in Sicily and at Corfu, the remnants of 
the older days fared but ill. It was in the mountain fast- 



38o GREECE AND THE ^GEAN ISLANDS 

nesses of the Peloponnesus and in the gloomy glens 
of Delphi that so much of the ancient, and even of the 
prehistoric and preheroic days, survived as to give us 
moqlerns even a more definite knowledge of the times 
of the Achaeans and Trojans than perhaps even Homer 
himself had. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



ACROCORINTH, 169. 

Acropolis, of Athens, first views of, 
46 ; description of, 76 ; approach 
to, 79 ; gates of, 79 ; view from, 
79, 80. 

Acropolis Museum, 86, 91, 92. 

^gina, 39, 80, 137-139- 

Agamemnon, 28, 167, 175, 180, 181. 

Agora, at Athens, 76, 106. 

Alcmasonidae, 165. 

Alpheios, 223, 256-258. 

Andhritsaena, 227, 229—246. 

Aphrodite, of Praxiteles, 315. 

Apollo, 154, 243, 277, 278, 299. 

Apoxyomenos, of Lysippus, 166. 

Aqueduct, at Samos, 291-294. 

Arcadia, 211-228. 

Arch, development of, 181, 192. 

Areopagus, 107. 

Argive Herseum, 186. 

Argos, 187, 172-192. 

Ariadne, 31. 

Artemis, 279, 300. 

Asklepios, 3, 4, 97, 98, 203, 207, 
308-311. 

Athena, birth of, 83, 86 ; strife of, 
with Poseidon, 83, 90 ; sacred 
image of, 90 ; Archaic representa- 
tions of, 92 ; Pronoia, 164, 168. 

Athens, approaches to, 46 ; modern 
city, 50-75 ; ancient traditions of, 
51; growth and history, 51, 52; 
street venders, 55; street names, 
57; stadium, 58 ; street car sys- 
tem, 58 ; climate of, 59, 60 ; 
street scenes, 61-68; newspapers, 



63 ; Shoe Lane, 63, 64 ; shop- 
ping, 64; street of the copper- 
smiths, 66 ; giaourti, 68 ; modern 
architecture, 69; churches, 69, 
70; icons, 69 ; soldiery, 70, 71 ; 
funerals, y;^ ; conversation beads, 
74; Acropolis, 76 ; destruction of, 
by Persians, 88. 
Atreus, treasury of, 183, 184. 

" Balaustion," 273, 330. 
Bassae, 235-245. 
Bee-hive tombs, 183, 184. 
Bema, 109. 
Beule gate, 79. 
Branchidae, 297-303. 
Burial customs, 73, 246. 

Candia, 26-29. 

Canea, 18-26. 

Caryatid portico, 91. 

Castalian spring, 167. 

Cephissus, 50. 

Ceramicus, 1 12-1 18. 

Charioteer, statue of, at Delphi, 

166. 
Choragic monument of Lysicrates, 

76, 104. 
Churches, Greek, 69, 70. 
Cnidos, 314-317. 
Cnossos, 29-36. 
Coffee, 66, 67. 
Coffee-houses, 53, 54. 
Corcyra (Kerkyra) 370. 
Corfu, 368-380. 
Corinth, 169, 170. 



384 



INDEX 



Corinthian canal, 148, 149. 

Corinthian capitals, 105. 

Corinthian Gulf, 149, 150. 

Cos, 304-313. 

Crete, 18-36. 

Croesus, 156; trial of oracles by, 

160, 161 ; gifts to oracle at Delphi, 

161-163. 
Cyclopean masonry, 175, 189. 
Cyclopes, 191. 

Dances, of peasants, 139-145. 

Daphne, pass of, 124; convent of, 
125. 

Delos, 272-285 ; legend of, 275 ; 
dual nature, 276 ; excavations at, 
277; ancient houses, 279-281. 

Delphi, 146-168; excavations at, 
153-158; legend of, 154, 155; or- 
acle at, 155-157, 159-165; gifts 
of Croesus to oracle, 161- 163; 
great temple at, 165; corruption 
of oracle, 157-165; statue of 
charioteer, 166. 

Demeter, 128, 130. 

Dipylon, 112. 

Drachma, fluctuation of, 71-73. 

Dragoman, 212. 

Dress, of peasants, 142, 171, 201. 

Easter eggs, 360. 

Eleusinian mysteries, 128. 

Eleusis, 124-132. 

Elgin marbles, 83, 86. 

Embroideries, 311, 325. 

Ephebus, bronze statue at Athens, 

118, 119. 
Epidaurus, 198-210. 
Erechtheum, 88; sacred precinct 

of, 90. 
Erechtheus, 89. 



Giaourti, 68. 

Greece, traveling in, 1-17; entrances 

to, 37-49 ; landing in, 44. 
Greek churches, 69, 70, 
Greek language, 9-13. 
Greek people, character of, 14, 15, 

53. 54- 
Gremka, 255. 

Hadrian, arch of, 48, 104. 

Halicamassus, 313. 

Hera, 275, 294. 

Heraeum, Argive, 186; at Olympia, 

260; at Samos, 291-294. 
Hermes, of Praxiteles, 268, 269. 
Herodotus, 90, 160-163, 290, 291. 
Hippocrates, tree of, at Cos, 307. 
Hippodameia, 266. 
Hymettus, 39, 47. 

Icons, 69. 

Ictinus, 81, 243. 

los (Nios) 352-360. 

Islands, of the iEgean, 272-367 ; 

geographical arrangement, 273; 

communication with, 274. 

Karytasna, 224. 
King George, 74, 75. 
Knights of Rhodes, 305, 319. 

Labyrinth, of Minos, 31, 32. 

Lindos, 318. 

Lion Gate, at Mycenae, 178, 179. 

Long walls, at Athens, 42, 

Loukoumi, 25. 

Lycabettus, 38. 

Lysippus, 166. 

Malmsey wine, 367. 
Marathon, 133. 



INDEX 



385 



Mars Hill, 76, 88, 107. 

Mausoleum, 313. 

Megalokastron, 27. 

Megalopolis, 218-223. 

Menidi, dances at, 139-145. 

Midnight mass, 353-361. 

Minoan age, 28. 

Minos, 27-31 ; throne of, 33. 

Minotaur, 31, 32, 89, 112. 

Monemvasia, 365-367. 

Mycenae, 169-186; accommodation 

at, 173; excavations at, 175; 

acropolis of, 177 ; Lion Gate, 178, 

179; Cyclopean masonry, 175, 

178, 179; inverted columns, 178; 

tombs at, 180 ; reservoir, 182 ; 

treasury of Atreus, 183. 
Mycenaean age, 28; stone pillars 

of, 33. 178. 
Mycenaean relics at Athens, 120- 

122. 
Mykale, 288. 

National Museum, at Athens, iiS. 

Nauplia, 193-198. 

Nausicaa, 371. 

Navigation, in ancient times, 273, 

371- 

Newspapers, 10, 63. 

Nike Apteros, temple of, 80 ; bind- 
ing sandal, 81 ; of Paeonius, 
263, 270. 

Odeon of Herodes Atticus, 96. 
Odysseus, 16, 17, 370. 
CEnomaus, legend of, 266. 
Olympia, overland route to, 247- 

258; site of, 259-271 ; temple of 

Zeus at, 260, 263. 
Olympian Zeus, temple of, at 

Athens, 48, 76, 104. 



Olympic games, 264-266 ; modern, 

271. 
Orientation of temples, 242. 

Paganism, traces of, in Greek 
church, 3, 4. 

Painting, of statues, 91. 

Panathenaic festival, 89. 

Parian marble, 362. 

Parnassus, 145, 151. 

Paros, 351, 361-365. 

Parthenon, 3, 4 ; destruction by 
Morosini, 77, 85 ; description of, 
82-88 ; pedimental sculptures of, 
83 ; curious architectural devices, 
84-86 ; restorations of, 86 ; frieze 
of, 87. 

Patras, 368. 

Paul, sermon to the Athenians, 
107. 

Peasant dances, 139-145. 

Peasant dress, 142, 171, 201. 

Pedestal of Agrippa, 81. 

Pedimental sculptures, of Parthe- 
non, 83 ; at Olympia, 267, 268. 

Pelops, 266. 

Pentelic marble, 134. 

Pentelicus, 38, 134. 

Pericles, 42. 

Persians, invasion by, 87, 88; at 
Delphi, 164. 

Phalerum, 45. 

Philopappos, monument of, 47. 

Piraeus, 39-46. 

Pnyx, 108. 

Political customs, 61. 

Polychrome decoration of temples, 
92. 

Polycrates, 290. 

Poseidon, strife with Athena, 83, 90. 

Praxiteles, 268, 315. 



386 



INDEX 



Propylaea, 79, 80, 81. 
Ptolemy IL, 311. 
Pythagoras, 291. 

Religious anniversaries, 62, 353- 

361. 
Reservoir, at Mycenae, 182. 
Resinated wine, 137. 
Rhodes, 318-333; Colossus of, 

332- 
Rhodian plates, 323, 324. 
Routes to Greece, 15, 16. 

St. Elias, successor of ancient He- 
lios, 5. 
Salamis, 39, 43, 132. 
Samos, 286-297. 
Santorin, 334-350- 
" Ship of Ulysses, " 375. 
Shoe Lane, at Athens, 63-65. 
Shopping in Athens, 63-65. 
Soldiery, 70, 71. 
Sparta, 216. 
Stage, use of, in Greek theatre, 100, 

lOI. 

Stoa, 106. 

Stoics, 106. 

Suda Bay, 19, 25, 26. 

Sunium, 37, 134-138- 



Taygetos, 216. 

Temples, survival of, as Chnstian 

churches, 4. 
Theatre of Dionysus, 98 ; of Epi- 

daurus, 204. 
Theatres, 99-103. 
Themistoclean wall, 113. 
Themistocles, 42, 113. 
Theocritus, 312. 
Thera, 334-350- 
Theseum, no. 
Theseus, 31, 89, in. 
Tiryns, 188-192. 
Tomb-sculpture, 114-118. 
Tombs, at Mycenae, 183, 184. 
Tower of the Winds, 105. 
Treasury of Atreus, 183. 
Troy, 28, 36. 

Villa Achilleion, 376. 

" Virgin of a Hundred Gates, " 361. 

Votive offerings, 126. 

Xerxes, 87, 88. 

Zeus, legends of, in Crete, 30 ; tem- 
ple in Athens, 48, 76, 104 ; temple 
at Olympia, 260 ; statue at Olym- 
pia, 263 ; see also, 275 et seq. 



(Sil)z Stitecjfiitre Tj^n^^ 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



